What I get paid is nobody's business except mine and my company's. That you can't negotiate your salary worth isn't my problem. Get better negotiating skills.
Then how do you know how good you are at negotiating?
I can assure you your company knows exactly how much other companies in your area are paying for every role. Market participants with incomplete information get taken advantage of.
> You need to decide what your labor is worth.
Based on what?
> The number you’re willing to work for.
There's no set number. I'll take as much as an employer is possibly willing to part with. Since I can't know that number, the next best thing is to know how much they pay others and start negotiations at > than that number.
You're worth as much as your employer can/will pay for your skills. Why would you ever take any less, assuming you like everything else about the job? How much you value the non-money aspects of the job is irrelevant to the discussion of how much you should be paid. If you like the non-money aspects treat it as a bonus meant just for you, because it is.
You should be happy in your job, no question about it. But happiness vs money is usually a false dichotomy.
Too much time is spent trying to measure ourselves against others only to breed unnecessary dissatisfaction.