Many Wall Street chief executives took a big pay cut for 2009. But their real value may have been in deflecting attention from their troops—who enjoyed the largest collective payday on record.

Across Wall Street, leading firms paid out $140 billion in compensation and benefits, the highest number in history, based on a final tally of the pay disclosures at 38 financial-services firms. That figure, which was projected earlier by The Wall Street Journal, represented an increase from $123 billion earned by financial professionals...