While Big Bird and the other denizens of Sesame Street wait to hear if they'll still have jobs come spring, Wall Street bankers are looking forward to bonuses. According to a new survey, 48 percent of financial professionals think their
bonuses this year will be bigger than last year.
Of those who expect a bonus increase this year, 41 percent said the primary reason was their personal achievements, 12 percent attributed it to their department’s performance and 26 percent to their firm’s success, the survey found. The rest said they had a different job, their pay structure had changed or market conditions were better.
This is an industry where the average bonus was $121,150 in 2011, but a strong plurality of those surveyed believe that personal awesomeness is the reason for them as individuals to get bigger bonuses. They believe they're really worth that much more than the rest of us, and the structure of the financial industry—hell, the economic structure of the entire country—backs them up in that. There's your culture of entitlement for you.