Big Bonuses Still Flow on Street

The comptroller's office also noted that Wall Street firms "devoted a much lower share" of revenue to pay, compared with previous years.

But while Goldman Sachs (GS) received a lot of attention for paying CEO Lloyd Blankfein "just" a $9 million bonus -- a sliver of the $68.5 million he received in 2007 -- and other top executives at Morgan Stanley (MS), Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) have made waves by forgoing bonuses in recent years, those high-profile earners aren't the only ones on the Street.

Legions of traders and investment bankers underneath them are clamoring for better pay packages while returning their companies to profitability. For instance, American International Group's (AIG) recently departed top lawyer, Anastasia Kelly, is just one example of the overworked underlings who feel they deserve better compensation. Kelly left because of government restrictions on her salary.

"I've spent my life working myself up a career ladder to where I am, and I had been working 18 hours a day, seven days a week, and killing myself," Kelly recently told Fortune in a Q&A about her controversial departure. "... For someone to say, 'I think you're doing a great job, Stasia, but the American people hate you and therefore we think you should make no more than $500,000 a year' -- there's no logic to that."

It's also worth noting that JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon is expected to receive about $17 million in stock bonuses, and the pay package of Wells Fargo's (WFC) top gun, John Stumpf, beat out all other big-bank competitors. Wells doesn't have a huge securities-trading operation, but Stumpf is due to receive $18.7 million in cash and stock for 2009, up 64% from 2007.

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