You would think that if management had known it would cost them at least 19x what they were paying you, they would be happy to give you whatever raise you asked. But, maybe not. There are a lot of other factors.
There's a trust factor. For some reason, upper management doesn't necessarily trust the judgement of their lower management, like like lower management rarely trusts the judgement of their engineers.
There's an information disparity. Upper management often doesn't see what people on the lower rungs of the org chart are doing. To upper management, it looks like the one who's getting all the things done is lower management, not the engineers.
There's also a psychological factor. For some reason, humans are much more likely to overpay for something new than to pay far less to maintain something old. I'm not entirely sure why, but I see this mentality affect everybody from upper management to engineers to people buying cars.
There's also the ego factor. I've seen some business owners react very, very poorly to having an employee request a raise. It can be perceived as somebody trying to take more money out of your pocket for no return. This can also be applied to larger companies and budgets, bonuses, etc.
There's also the "fiefdom" factor. Your management might see expanding your team from 1 engineer to 19 as an improvement to their social standing in the company regardless of how much money it costs the company. The larger your department, the more important you're perceived to other departments and the c-suite.
edit: spelling and clarity.