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Financials: pay and profit in the S&P 500

The sector's median ratio of 191:1 is close to the index average, but it averages over two groups with almost nothing in common: retail banks with vast branch networks, and asset managers with a few thousand highly paid professionals.

At 76 companies, Financials is the second-largest sector in the index. Its median worker pay of $97,852 is among the highest, and its median profit per employee of $112,453 is well above the index norm. The internal range, though, runs from 4:1 to 797:1.

The retail banks and processors

The widest gaps in the sector belong to businesses with large operational workforces: branch staff, call-centre staff, transaction processing:

Fiserv is the sector's most notable entry, and it passes the test that matters: a median of $88,295 is a well-paid workforce by any standard, so there is no compositional explanation for a 797:1 ratio. The $70.3 million three-year average CEO compensation is doing the work.

The large banks, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and BNY Mellon, sit in similar territory with medians in the $73,000–$82,000 range. These are not low-wage workforces, and their ratios reflect executive pay rather than workforce composition. This makes the sector unusual: in most of the index, the widest ratios come with medians under $25,000.

Two exceptions run the other way. FIS reports a median of $44,229 and State Street $43,491, both reflecting large offshore operations and processing centres. FactSet's $17,636 is the sector's lowest by a distance, and S&P Global's $40,158 similarly reflects substantial staff outside high-cost markets.

The alternative asset managers

At the other extreme sit firms whose entire workforce is professional. Apollo Global Management reports 4:1 on a median of $189,150; Blackstone reports 399:1 on a median of $275,000, the highest in the sector; KKR 317:1 on $210,000. Coinbase reports 33:1 on $217,526 and Robinhood 13:1 on $194,162.

These ratios vary wildly while the underlying workforces look similar, because the numerator is erratic: some of these firms compensate their principals as owners rather than employees, and the disclosed figure captures only part of the arrangement. Apollo's 4:1 does not indicate an egalitarian firm. It indicates that its chief executive's economic interest arrives through partnership structures the Summary Compensation Table does not record.

Berkshire Hathaway's 4:1 is the best-known figure in the sector and reflects Warren Buffett's $100,000 salary. It is also the sector's largest profit by a considerable distance at $84.1 billion.

Profit per employee

Financials generates more profit per worker than any sector except Energy and Real Estate. Apollo reaches $1.06 million per head, CME Group $931,613, KKR $606,782, Everest Group $597,258.

Exchanges and asset managers are structurally capital-light and staff-light. CME Group operates critical market infrastructure with 3,875 employees. The consequence for Fair500's second measure is that even the sector's high wages represent a modest share of profit per head, so several of the narrowest-ratio firms here score poorly on pay-versus-profit despite paying extremely well.

The large retail banks sit differently: JPMorgan Chase earns $55.0 billion but employs over 300,000 people, so its profit per employee of $172,741 is far closer to the index norm, and its median worker pay of $111,905 represents a more meaningful share of it.

Every financial company in the S&P 500

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