etherizedpatient's journey

I was recently laid off from my position at an agency in New York where I had been employed since 2025. My initial severance package offered me only three weeks of pay and one month of COBRA coverage, which I feel is insufficient. I plan to negotiate for six weeks of severance and three months of employer-paid COBRA. A complicating factor in my situation is that during my performance review in August, my manager assured me that I would receive an annual raise in conjunction with my one-year anniversary, which was supposed to be reflected in my paycheck on September 1st. However, that raise never materialized. I chose not to address this earlier as I didn't want to create tension, especially since I was dealing with several personal distractions at the time. On my last day, I brought this up with my manager, who confirmed that he remembered our conversation about the raise and acknowledged that it was supposed to happen. He advised me to reach out to HR for clarification. When I contacted HR, she seemed surprised when I mentioned that the raise hadn't gone through. She indicated that there might have been funding issues affecting raises and mentioned that I could have been reconsidered for a raise in April 2027, had I still been employed at that time. Now, as I prepare for severance negotiations, I'm uncertain about how to address the raise issue. I lack documentation on whether the raise was formally approved, proposed but denied, or never submitted at all. I'm debating whether to request this information from HR or simply to leverage my discussions with my manager in my negotiations for a better severance package. I'm also considering if I should consult with an attorney about this situation.