By Steve Levy
A little-noticed article last week talked about the extravagant bonuses that workers in New York’s Financial District received at the end of the year. The average bonus of $176,500 was actually down from previous years. https://www.newsday.com/business/wall-street-bonuses-securities-t5fqg1ui
The figure is nevertheless astounding to the average worker, whose total salary may average one-third of that amount.
But before we engage in a session of class envy, consider this: A huge percentage of the state’s treasury comes from taxes that are levied on these bonuses Thus, when the bonuses are higher, there’s more money coming into the state coffers. When bonuses are down, the opposite is true.
This led to a very ironic situation I witnessed when I was a state legislator. I caucused with conservative upstaters, moderate suburbanites and radically left city officials. It was always interesting to see how the more Marxist-oriented city officials would pontificate publicly about how much they despised the greed of Wall Street. But privately they would be hoping and praying that the bonuses came in big-time, because they knew that would mean more money in the state budget that they can allocate to their favorite causes.
How ironic that the poor and working classes that the liberals profess to champion are helped more when the capitalists do better.
Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com