I work in a local government as a Technology professional. I am one of the only professional African Americans in the entire IT department but I try not to put a lot of weight on that. I have been here for over 8 years now. However, my title has remained the same. I have a Masters degree and 25 years experince in the IT field with Technical and Management experience. I am now taking an MBA and finished a Project Management program. I was also selected by the company and put through a leadership program in 2004. No one else in my group has more experience or education than I do. Past jobs I have been in I have always been promoted, however, in this job it has not ocurred. I have applied to jobs internally with no success. I have talked to my supervisor and Management about this with no good responses. The response is always that it is the budget. However, I have seen others promoted that started around the same time frame as I have. To make matters worse, they laxed the degree requirement for my title and I now sit in a room with a guy with no degree and the same title. My curent boss has me configure and install software and hardware and than hands it off to others. She definitely shows favoritism to certain people out of the group. I am thankful to have a job making over 70k but it really has taken a toll on me. It was great prior to 2004 when we received cost of living and percentage raises but things have been frozen since 2005. I do teach as an adjunct and I do other things to keep me motivated. Should I suck it up and conclude that I should be happy to have a job in this bad economy or keep searching for something new? I believe I have a legitimate reason for frustration.