re: What to do if given a merit based promotion but no raise? **Updated Page 3**

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You never get a second chance to start with higher pay, and you'll always be getting paid less than others who started higher

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Bingo. People telling you to wait a year to see if they'll follow up with a raise are out of their minds. ALL future pay increases are based on what you make right now and compounding is real. Here's some mathiness for you.

Let's say you make $4000 a month and take a "promotion" with a promise that in a year, you're going to get a ten percent raise for the job you're doing now. After that, you'll be getting a 4% cost of living raise every year. Let's assume you are in your 20's and work for another 40 years. After your 10% raise in one year and 39 years of COLA adjustments, you'll have made about $4.8 million.

Now, let's say you get that raise now and you're making $4400 a month with the 4% COLA every year. At the end of 40 years of the COLA adjustments, you'll have made about $5 million. By letting them frick you for a year, you're costing yourself $200,000 dollars, and that's if they make good on their promise in a year after they've already proven they have no problem fricking you today.

It gets worse. Every 10% raise you get going forward is a SMALLER raise if you wait that first year than if you got that first raise right now. As time goes on, the disparity in pay between if you get that raise now or forego it for just one year gets wider and wider. Pretty soon, you'll reach a point where the raises you'd need to catch up and close the gap are so large that no company will be willing to give them to you. All because you waited and the power of compounding showed up.

DO NOT let companies frick you over on pay. If they won't take care of you, find a company that is willing to give you a bump in pay and continue to give you regular COLA and merit increases. Never just let a company use you on a promise that they'll open up the pocketbook later. It's the power of compounding that can really screw you in the future if you think "oh, it's only a little while or a little bit of money". No, it's a LOT of money over the remainder of your working career that you're missing out on by selling yourself short today.

frick. That. Company.