Throwaway for obvious reasons
I am transferring to a new department within my company for a role that is more suited for my background. Before I met with HR to discuss my new job, I received the job description, which is a copy and paste of all the responsibilities of a level higher of my current position with some additional job responsibilities. Since I had a stellar performance review, a higher level job description, and I am finishing my masters degree in the field in May (structural engineering), I reasonably expected a pay increase and a title change for this new job.
During my meeting with HR, neither a pay increase or a title change was mentioned, so at the end of the call, I respectfully asked for my merit to be reviewed along with my title. I had statatics that I was paid in the lower 10% of people in a similar position, with this benchmark not including my new masters degree that I will earn in a couple of months. I also said that the job description is of a level higher than me, which means I should be promoted. HR took this information back and scheduled a call for later in the week.
During the next meeting, HR had come back and said that despite my education, job description, and compensation data, they will not give me a pay raise. I went through my points again, and at the end, I asked them point blank “Do you think it is okay to with pay me less than 90% of my peers in a similar role?”
And HR looked me right at their laptop's camera, chuckled a bit, and said “Yeah!”
Then started stammering and say how much they support my goals and how much they value my contributions to the company. I just hung up the call.
TLDR: Got new job within the same company, more responsibilities with no extra pay. Asked about being undercompensated and HR laughed and essentially said they know and don't care.