By Jordan Heller
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Despite the outcry from the public and congress over compensation, pay on Wall Street is expected to break a record high for the second year in a row, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The paper surveyed 35 of Wall Street's top publicly held firms, including banks, investment banks, hedge funds, money-management firms and securities exchanges, and found that they are set to pay $144 billion in compensation in 2010, a four percent increase from 2009.
The data shows that Wall Street is continuing to base compensation packages on economic and market conditions rather than on the wishes of regulators in Washington or the taxpayers who recently bailed them out.
"Until focus of these institutions changes from revenue generation to long-term shareholder value, we will see these outrageous pay packages and compensation levels," Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, told WSJ.
The excuse among many of the firms surveyed is the same, according to the Journal — if they don't offer competitive compensations, they risk losing the top talent.
