"Red-circled." What are my options?

[Ron61]

Your situation is not all that unusual. I worked with people who hadn’t received a pay raise in five years because they had reached the top on their respective ladder. They did receive a “merit payment” at the end of the year as the company’s way of saying “we know you deserve a raise but can’t give you one because you are maxed out,therefore we’re giving you this payment of $2000 instead”. Even that wasn’t a given however.