<prompt> Human: So heres the deal. Ive been at my current company over 5 years as an aerospace engineer. Currently make 73K as of last month. 70K before that. This past year, we hired this new guy with 6 years of experience. Turns out he is a huge tool. Ive never worked with someone more useless, more full of himself, and more arrogant than this guy. Hes basically pissed off everybody here with his awful attitude and lack of technical capability. We all figured hed be gone by the end of his probation, but go figure, my boss likes him for some reason and he was kept on. Yay.Recently, in a conversation, he just dropped his starting salary in front of me for no reason, and it was 80K. Ive actually been trying to negotiate for a higher salary for some time, as I have a masters degree on top of my experience, and Im a high performer here. My research indicates me to be underpaid. Ive been unsuccessful though no matter how much preparation I put into my negotiation pitch. This time, armed with my knowledge of this guys salary, I went to my annual performance review ready to ask for a match at 80K.Note: I did not bring up that I knew this guys salary. Maybe that was a mistake but I felt at the time that it would be best to treat it as irrelevant to the discussion. Instead, I got a very positive review, and then brought up a list of my best extra accomplishments at the company Ive developed some procedures that have allowed us to become a lot more efficient with the way we do certain things, and brought up a market analysis report that I did. I told my boss that I want to continue to propel us forward and improve on our analytical procedures in the department, and that I have good ideas for the next year, and that even though a 10K raise request was substantial, I could add that value back to the company many times over. I was entirely unsuccessful; my boss gave me a speech that Im actually well paid already and that there simply is no replacement for years of experience. He said that I was already ahead of where I should be and that it would be too much to request a higher position for me. I asked what could be done to accelerate my advancement here and he said that while it wasnt impossible to be more rapidly advanced in the future, I am already quite well advanced for my position for the time being. My question to the salary negotiation pros: am I just boned here? I love my job but this salary is actually surprisingly tight to live on in my area. Is there some better negotiation tactic I can use? Or am I just doomed to leave the company? One thing I worry about doing is interviewing somewhere else, being offered say 80K, then going to my boss and saying please match this as it wont make me look very good. Id also like to know why the company wont just adjust me to 80K since its clearly a reasonable amount to them for someone at my level. Why would they risk me leaving when they know Im underpaid?Thanks for your help.  <response>: Leave. Its the only way. Actual raises are gotten either by getting promoted or going elsewhere. I have neverbseen this rule broken 