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I got a promotion today. The big difference between my old job title and my new one are being expected to take on more responsibility, I get a secretary assigned to me -- I've had an "unofficial" one who has helped me out the last year or so, and a pay raise. Other than that, I've really been acting as the new job title for almost 2 years now. Today just made it official.

Except I was told not only are there no merit raises this year (a rumor that has been circulating for about a month) but there are also no promotion increases. And hey, I get it, times are tough. There was a part of me that expected to go into my review and hear "good work this year, and any other year we'd be promoting you, but, you know, the economy...try again next year." I'm thankful to just have a job, particularly because there have been 2 rounds of layoffs at my firm. But the part that's really rubbing me the wrong way is that not only did they raise my billing rate in January, but tomorrow it goes up again for the sole reason that I got promoted. The two increases will add up to an additional $40/hour. I can honestly say that if they said to me "look, the economy sucks so we have to freeze your billing rate to get the most business in here possible, so with a frozen billing rate we can't give you any kind of a merit increase" I would be able to deal with this a lot easier. But to say that they can't afford to give me a promotion increase because of the economy while simultaneously raising my billing rate because I was promoted rings a bit hollow.

Am I being totally unreasonable?