I don't know if this is so much of a question or more of a rant, but anyway.....
I'm at my first IT job which is a NOC environment. I've been working at this company for 2 and a half years, starting out as an unpaid intern fresh out of a CCNA networking academy. I have since grown to being essentially the lead engineer on our small team. I say essentially because we rarely see our boss so he doesn't really understand how much effort I put in behind the scenes while most of my co-workers basically just slide by.
I'm not trying to be negative, but god damnit some of my co-workers barely know how to use their laptop. When I started here everyone was using telnet to log into all of our networking equipment, so much for basic security best practices

The people I work with have absolutely no interest in learning anything new and pretty much just come in for an easy pay check, and because we never see our boss they get away with it. What really pissed me off is a few weeks ago one of my co-workers was asking me for **** to the CCNA exam. This guy has been here longer than me and can't even pass the CCNA honestly? For christ's sake, in less time I've gotten a CCNA, CCNA Security, and passed the CCNP Switch exam. If after 3 years you still can't pass the CCNA exam, something's wrong!
Anyway, last year one of my co-workers accidentally left a copy of his pay stub on a computer we all use and I saw that he makes about $12,000 more a year than I do. This didn't bother me at first, but that was about a year ago and after being promised pay raises that never come and promotions that don't exist I'm really getting frustrated.
I've been looking at other jobs but most want a senior network engineer, or at least someone with a lot more experience than I have. The problem I have is that my co-workers are so technically weak that I'm really not learning anything from them, so I'm stuck in this spot where I have enough experience to deserve a raise, but not enough to go somewhere else.
I know it's typically not a good idea to bring up co-workers pay with your boss, but is asking for my pay to be matched with another's really that big of a deal? Every review I've had has been really good, my boss is always saying how I'm on the road to being a $100k network engineer....but right now I don't even make half of that. I think my boss means well, but I also think he's merely just telling me what I want to hear. My boss has offered one advancement, but I'd have to move about 100 miles away in a city that is a lot more expensive to live than where I'm at right now. If I can't afford living where I'm at now how in hell am I going to afford living somewhere more expensive? Even if I had a massive raise I don't know if I could afford it.
Whenever I talk to a recruiter about a job they are looking for the conversation tends to end the same way, "This client is looking for someone with a bit more experience, but I'll keep an eye out for a match for you". Maybe I'm not BSing myself enough or I'm not being as confident as I should be, but I really have nobody to compare myself with tech-wise other than my co-workers who are extremely low and uninterested in learning anything new.
I used to drive trucks in my previous career, and a big part of me is considering going back. I'm just really frustrated with the inability to advance. I'm a geek at heart and love what I do, but I'm barely getting by money wise and don't really know what to do.