NEW YORK -- JPMorgan Chase, the second-largest U.S. bank, set aside $9.3 billion for compensation and benefits for investment-bank employees in 2009, enough to pay each worker in that unit $378,600.

The reserve is 33 percent of the investment bank's revenue for the year, compared with 62 percent in 2008, New York-based JPMorgan said Friday on its Web site. That's the lowest proportion allocated for pay since JPMorgan merged with Bank One Corp. in 2004.

Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon set aside $549 million for compensation costs in the fourth quarter, the least amount since at least 2004, as banks face public rancor over the size of bonus pools after receiving taxpayer funds during the financial crisis. President Obama called bank bonuses "obscene" yesterday as he outlined a tax on 50 of the largest financial firms to recoup bailout costs.

"If he's bringing comp down, I think he's saying we are not going to lose people and we owe shareholders a higher return," said Jason Tyler, a senior vice president at Ariel Investments in Chicago, which owns about 280,000 JPMorgan shares.

JPMorgan Chief Financial Officer Michael Cavanagh said on a conference call with analysts that the firm's bonus pool was reduced in part on anticipation of Britain's 50 percent tax on banks paying discretionary bonuses of more than $40,000.

Dimon defended his pay practices at a Jan. 13 hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. He said senior executives receive most of their compensation in stock and are required to hold 75 percent of equity awards they are granted.

"The public controversy about compensation probably led to extra downward pressure on compensation ratios," Chris Kotowski, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., wrote in a note. "It certainly has to have had an impact on Wall Street compensation expectations."

Individual compensation varies widely within investment banks, with low-level employees often earning bonuses of less than $100,000 while global division heads may receive compensation topping $10 million, according to a report by New York-based pay consultant Options Group. JPMorgan said in July that 1,144 employees received a bonus of more than $1 million in 2008, responding to a report on compensation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Payment of bonuses in stock as opposed to cash lowers the expense firms have to record on their income statements because the cost often isn't realized until the shares vest. Cavanagh said paying more in stock reduced the firm's compensation ratio by "a point or two." Compensation for individual workers may be higher if they collect the shares they are awarded.

JPMorgan's investment-banking revenue more than doubled to $28.1 billion for the year from 2008, the company said as it announced a $3.28 billion quarterly profit.

The bank's full-year compensation costs were 21 percent below Macquarie Group analyst David Trone's estimate of $11.8 billion, and less than the $11 billion Ladenburg Thalmann analyst Brad Ball expected.

Goldman Sachs, which announces results Thursday, set aside $16.7 billion, or enough to pay each employee at the entire firm $527,192, for the first nine months of 2009.

Banks including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and UBS increased salaries for some employees last year as they adjusted bonus policies amid public and political outrage. JPMorgan said in July that investment bankers who received half or more of their total compensation in year-end bonuses would see higher salaries beginning this year.

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