Wall Street pay practices have ‘worsened,’ report says

Think Wall Street emerged chastened from the financial crisis? Think again.

A new report has found that the pay practices of big financial firms have "worsened" since the financial crisis, and that government efforts to regulate compensation in the financial industry have been counterproductive.

The study -- released Tuesday by the Council of Institutional Investors, which represents pension funds -- concludes that Wall Street firms are still too focused on short-term results in setting pay, and that they've increased salaries to get around curbs on bonuses, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In response to public anger over enormous Wall Street bonuses paid by many firms receiving taxpayer bailouts, banks have shifted more compensation into base salaries and stock options. Some, including Wells Fargo, actually rewarded executives with "massive salary increases,'' the report found.

The study looked at six firms -- Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Co., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo -- all of which received billions in bailout money to stave off a financial collapse.

You can read the full report here (PDF).

(File photo of Wall Street: AP/Mark Lennihan)