So you've been on the job for three years but the boss won't cut you a raise. Is that your problem, friend? Perhaps the solution to your problem rests in your own hands. If you can prove you're deserving of a raise in salary and you take the appropriate steps to get one, an increase in taxable income just might be in your future. Take a look at the following informative video to gain some insight on effective paycheck building strategy. If you employ the tactics discussed in this video, and you still can't get a raise, it might be time to seek a new employer. I believe that you have every right to expect appropriate compensation for exemplary job performance, even if that means getting it from a new company.

I encountered a fascinating article at Forbes.com. Writer Tara Weiss brings to light the fact that when accepting a new job, recruits should realize that they have a right and even a responsibility to take some initiative in negotiating their pay package. Think of it this way: After all the long hours of processing applications, reviewing resumes, and conducting interviews, if you are the individual who receives the offer for employment, that indicates you have a lot going for you. Don't be undersold. It's not an issue of pride. It's responsible economics plain and simple.

With the hope that you'll read Ms. Weiss's article, I'll take the proposition one step further. I submit to you that once you have become established in a job, don't let a job classification or title restrict you from asking for more. If you're not bound by the terms of a labor agreement through a union or other labor contract, then the sky's the limit, and I'm saying that you should go for it. Every employment situation offers opportunities for advancement and for income increase also. If you don't believe me, let me prove it to you.

The company I work for is historically tight-fisted when it comes to employee compensation. It's not that we don't generate enough profit to justify pay raises, but as a subsidiary of a larger entity that provides the lion's share of our workload, accounting is "manipulated" to push the profit up to the parent company. This is simple to prove when given the fact that, in a responsible business sense, any company that shows the minimal profit we do would be immediately shut down and those capital assets would be put to work elsewhere. This makes it tough for a guy like me to get ahead. I, however, applied a strategy that has performed for me all of my working years, and which is encompassed in the following ideal:

I don't work for my employer, I work for me. It's all about my own bottom line.

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) floats around in a cloud of the rarefied air that is happy employees. Or so it seems if you gulp down the Frappuccino Kool-Aid, slurping up the frequent mentions in Fortune's "100 Top Employers" list, the formal name of "partners" instead of employees, the stock options, the good benefits, the repeated comments about raises in earnings calls and shareholder meetings. Yep, if you do nothing but lick up the PR, you must realize that Starbucks' workers -- err, partners -- are the happiest on every block.

Or are they? Not according to Daniel Gross, former partner at New York's Madison Avenue and 36th Street store, and the other members of the Starbucks Workers Union he helped organize. While their numbers must be small; the SWU only represents partners at nine of the company's 9,401 U.S. stores; their complaints are multitudinous. Two of the union's members, including Gross, were fired unfairly, they say. Starbucks has been cited by the National Labor Relations Board for breaking the law 30 times by pressuring union members. What's more, Starbucks partners aren't paid highly enough; the 'flexible hours' are too flexible and result in an always-uncertain schedule (yikes! I've never heard of food service organization with oft-changing schedules! oh, wait...); and the benefits aren't used by the majority of Starbucks partners (which Gross & company complain is because Starbucks limits its employees hours; Starbucks claims it's because so many of their employees have other coverage).

Not only that, there's the iced tea gestapo.