I was, honestly, perfectly content being underpaid at my job and getting my 2% raise every year. Except that this year, my company decided that they were going to evaluate everyone's salaries and raise them to “market level”.
I have access to the compensation of people in my field as my field's association does compensation surveys yearly. I can search for my job title, the type of institution (academic, government, private, etc.), and the regional location. I know exactly how much I was underpaid and anticipating a decent salary bump.
In order to be at the market level, I would need a 35% raise at a minimum to reach what is comparable to the market. So when I received my 18%, it was discouraging. It feels absolutely insane to say that 18% wasn't enough of a raise, especially when I would have been happy with 2-5% originally if the restructuring hadn't happened. However, the promise of a “market level” raise was enticing. It feels so conflicting when I should be happy with 18% but yet, I still feel underpaid and therefore, undervalued.