“Major investment banks have raised their standard base salary this spring for recent college graduates to $85,000, the first rise after five years in which the salaries hovered near $70,000.

“At the complex in Lower Manhattan formerly known as the World Financial Center, the vacancy rate — which soared to 41 percent after Merrill Lynch consolidated offices after the financial crisis — is now less than 5 percent.

“And in a return of high-stakes deal-making, large American companies executed more mergers and acquisitions last year than they did the year before the global financial crisis, earning huge fees for their Wall Street advisers in the process.

“Seven years after a crisis that shook Wall Street to its core, the financial sector’s economic imprint has largely recovered.”

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Read the full New York Times “The Upshot” article by Neil Irwin here.