Jobs that pay the average NYC salary of 400k...
Here is what I don't get about NYC salaries and that jobs that supposedly pay 400k (which should be rare). The salaries are suppose to be high, yes very high in NYC, but not as high as this: according to the governement, people working in financial activities in NYC (very very broad category) make 400k a year...and that's on average!
Here are some cases against the 400k avg:
1. Yet go to glassdoor, which in many other markets is known to be reputable, look up any of the big banks and the NYC area and you will not see salaries that high except for a few cases for high positions or traders.
2. Look up Harvard MBAs who work in NYC averaged 115k with bonus (or those who went to finance avg 147k a year without counting signing bonus), and sure many of them are starting the careers or have 2-5 years experience, and average about 180k a year. Either way it does not jive with the 400k AVERAGE salary for people working in financial activities in NYC.
3. The average salary for an NYU MBA grad after 5 years is $168k while its $190k for MBAs from Columbia. Sure many of them won't go into finance but these are 2 schools that a lot of people do end up on wall street.
4. Third year IB associates (so 5-6 years in the industry) top out at 500k (which doesn't really sustain the 400k avg salary and IB is such a small part of what a bank normally does, and sure at the top of the IB pyramid, salaries shoot up into the millions and into the tens of millions but there are fewer of those type of jobs).
BLS financial analysts in the greater new york city area avg at 125k.
All this to say:
Yes I know it is not an Apples to Apples comparison since some of these folks don't necessairly work in banking in Manhattan, yet still 400k average salary seems flawed based from my observations here.
What gives ? Are the government statistics flawed ? Or do people really average 400k (which means a whole bunch of people are making 600-700k) ? Remember financial activities pretty broad and does not just mean IBers and traders, I think we can count MO jobs in that category.
Sources:
1. BLS Govermenet data -- Look at financial activities
bls dot gov/ro2/qcew9310.htm
2. Harvard MBA salaries HBS site
3. BLS financial analysts OES site
4. MBA Salaries after 5 years Poets and Quants
5. IB salaries on WSO
Maybe I missed something, but where did you read that the average NYC salary is $400k?
EDIT: Okay, let's assume that's true for financial jobs. There are a lot of guys making tens of millions out there, and they probably skew the average...
someone failed their statistics class
literally laughed out loud. this is basically the only legitimate reply to this thread.
This is the site (below) and under financial activities the avg weekly salary is $7,659 which amounts to $398k a year. For people who actively look into salaries, medians are not that far off from averages and can give you a pretty good idea what the 50th percentile looks like...
You need to put the www and remove the word dot bls dot gov/ro2/qcew9310.htm
Id say NYC finance is an exception to your "median and mean are generally close together" rule... that's only true for a generally normally distributed set of data... something with a longgggg tail like NYC finance comp (think Icahn/Ackman, who make hundreds of millions).
If you had 50 guys making $100k each, and 1 guy making $15mm a year, that gets you to your $400k/yr average, median is still $100k.
True GutShot, very true What would then be an average-for-the-wall-street-commoners then ? Let's say we remove the top 2% of salaries in WS -- could we say the average is closer to 200-250k ?
What is the difference between median and mean for $500.
This is based on exact job location from what I see on the gov site. That means this also does not include anything just outside the city in the numbers you are looking at. So GS Jersey City employees are not even calculated in. Either way, the high earners are largely squewing the data. But interesting numbers none the less.
Based on the above posts, let me shed some of my brilliance on you broskis.
NYC is a multi-industry Global Hub, and the hub has a lot of the senior more financial professionals. Conveniently, not only is NYC a hub for the banks and buy-siders, but it is also an airport and international vacation hub for various seasons. Therefore, we have a high concentration of inhabitants who make a significant amount of money that work for institutions in the city and that may actually have residences externally. For instance, the Managing Director that I've worked with has his family living in a house in Arizona, however, the guy also has a penthouse in Manhattan for work purposes (amonth other things). The Managing Director makes about 6mil a year, and in my BB there are a lot of Managing Directors.. almost 1 MD for every Analyst.. however, if you compute the MD vs. Non-MD ratio, it's more like 1 MD per 7 non-MDs... just trying to give you some perspective here.
So, since we have some of the big Corporates located in NYC too, AND DONT FORGET INSURANCE, PENSION, Consulting, AND INTERNATIONAL ASSET MANAGERS with offices in NYC, they all employ very senior folks who may live here incidentally to their jobs (for employer purposes, what they do on their weekend in what city is their business).
Let's also remember that a lot of companies are outsourcing staff to India, Poland, Utah, Florida, and North Caroliina which do not earn anywhere near the junior salaries of new yorkers.. so you have a top heavy skew based on this metric.
So is 400k average reasonable? Of course it is! Another little fact I learned was that I found out to live comfrotable in NYC you need to be earning 125k per year, which actually makes a lot of sense when you price in lifestyle at around age 29 when you are either an Associate making 200-300k per year or VP making 300k+... Now imagine, you are under 30 making that much money, so you have the chances to move to a Buy sider and make 40% more per year (especially PE and HF) and that gets you well over 400k by the time you are 40... and since you are now a big swinging d-bag, you can earn much more than 500k per year and that is the starting point of a high earner here... higher earners make between the 1mil range of an MD in Middle Office BB to 500million Hedge Fund Manager with houses in Manhattan, CT, Hamptons, and California... get it?
Hope this helps broskis.
Nice - read your entire post in the voice of Gordon Gekko.
Read it in the voice of Yakov Smirnoff or Borat and it makes more sense.
You wrote that with a condescending tone but I thought most of it was absolutely retarded.
It was pretty silly and deluded
This whole post made me uncomfortable.
I don't know why I'm responding... average of 0 and 100k is 50k. average of 0 and 1m is 500k. average of 0 and 1b is 500m. a single person worth a 1b could compensate 2500 finance people making zero dollars and still average 400k. this is really basic.
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