Assuming you're a good employee, at least in your boss' eyes. 5 years ago, the market price was about 60K for a 5 year veteran, and assuming you didn't do like every else did, you stick to one good company like Nortel, each year the raise would then be about 5 %, so your now making (1.05)^5 * 60,000 = 77,000. That's actually a little low if you're in some good hot business like professional services... but for nortel, that's probably it.