RJ and Makay

Last year was Wall Street's best ever in terms of total compensation and benefits, which hit a record high of $135 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported that finding after analyzing 25 large publicly traded financial firms with at least $1 billion in market capitalization. Together, these firms have $750 billion in market cap, or 85% of the financial industry's total stock market value.

Wall Street's latest compensation figure is a 5.7% increase from 2009's $128 billion total. "Things are shifting back to where they were before," observes J. Robert Brown, a University of Denver law professor who studies compensation and corporate governance.