By Joan Gralla
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's bonuses will fall at least 50 percent this year, pushing them back down to the level last seen in 2002, the New York city comptroller said, predicting the pain will not be confined to top executives.
Federal regulators and New York Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo want the officers of banks and brokerages that they nearly capsized to forego their bonuses.
The report by City Comptroller William Thompson reveals Wall Street's pay scale, for all of its workers, is not divorced from economic forces.
Cuomo, at a separate news conference, was asked how far down in the pecking order bonuses should be withheld. Cuomo responded: "It's one of the questions we're looking at, and the other regulatory agencies."
New York City's tax revenues have withered with Wall Street, its economic engine, which last year paid out $33.2 billion in bonuses with pay-outs averaging just over $180,000.
"The impact of this crisis will have a lasting effect on the City's fiscal condition for years to come," Thompson said.
Thompson, one of several Democratic mayoral contenders, also said lots more city dwellers will lose jobs in 2010.
Though New York mayor Michael Bloomberg on November 5 forecast that almost all employers will have finished trimming personnel by next year, on Thursday his staffers noted the outlook has darkened since then.
This is partly why the mayor just a day ago ordered another $1.4 billion of cuts, they said, adding Bloomberg likely will revise down his next forecasts, which are due out in January.
Thompson called his economic outlook "grim, with strong downside risks for the remainder of this year, 2009 and 2010."
A total of 143,000 people in New York will lose their jobs, split almost equally between 2009 and 2010, Thompson said.
Mayor Bloomberg, a billionaire who hopes his business expertise wins him a third term next year, had predicted companies will ax 116,000 workers in 2009, but the mayor only expected firms to send 11,000 pink slips the following year.
The city's budget deficits and the coming election make these forecasts more noteworthy though they are fluid.
For example, Bloomberg recently said taxes that rise and fall with economy could drop 15 percent, topping his November forecast for a 13.6 percent drop.
