A $.25/hour raise will cut into profits, especially if you give out more than one. And an extra $30k isn't much if a company wants to give out raises, expand their market, make new capital investments, comply with new regulations, hire more talent, etc.
I could easily imagine a manager, knowing the full financial situation of the company, thinking that a 25-cent raise was really good, considering the company only grew revenues by $30k, rather than the $50k it needed to maintain healthy growth and additional future raises.
And sometimes record sales don't offset the expense of labor and a lack of teamwork. It's a well-known psychologial principle that people respond better to praise and encouragement. Most of the time, a person tries and fails, you're better off praising them for trying, rather than trying to discuss why they failed. Reward them for the effort, and they'll be motivated to make an even better effort the next time. Criticize them--even constructively--and they lose their enthusiasm and maybe don't bother trying at all the next time.
A manager who understands this might congratulate a team for record sales, even though the sales are still subpar, in order to encourage them to perform even better, especially in the areas of labor costs and teamwork, which may be exactly where the breakdown is between "better sales than last quarter" and "sales good enough to keep this company afloat".
And what's up with that, anyway? "We had record sales! How dare he tell us to work harder!" I can think of at least one way to cut labor costs: clear out the deadwood.
