This Christmas will be less blue than expected for investment bankers – their year-end bonuses are getting a boost from the government’s financial rescue, a new report says.

Rank-and-file bankers were on track to see as much as 70 percent drops in their traditional yearly bonuses because of sour results on Wall Street, Time magazine reports in its latest issue.

But the federal government’s efforts to inject capital into investment firms – which can apply the effect of such efforts to bonuses – means those bankers will see around a 40 percent drop in those bonuses.

However, firms that tap into the government aid are limited to what they can pay top execs.

“Year-end pay on Wall Street will be higher than it would have been had it not been for the government,” said Alan Johnson, a compensation expert quoted by Time.

Johnson predicted that a typical managing director at an investment bank will receive a bonus of $625,000 – down from $1.1 million last year.

dan.mangan@nypost.com