I feel like the bizarre, nonsense logic of capitalism does a lot to obscure how much of a difference even a small increase in wages can make for people. Like, many people may see it as, a $1 raise for someone making $10/hr is the equivalent of a $2 raise to someone making $20/hr. But this is totally wrong.

The problem is that this accept the capitalistic logic in which everything is a commodity and all desires are the same and equal. You get your paycheck, and you may choose to spend it on food, video games, shelter, Funko Pops, you know, whatever you want. Obviously, this is a false equivalence. A certain standard of living is necessary just to survive and remain healthy enough to work. Since that standard of living is a prerequisite to working, treating it as just another option of what luxuries to buy makes no sense.

Rather, since people will have to spend a certain amount of money on necessities, then we can treat that money as earmarked from the moment they collect their paycheck. Which means that, rather that saying, "You get paid $10/hr," from another perspective, we can say, "Your boss provides you with room and board and transportation, and then an additional $1/hr." I know these numbers aren't super accurate, but just for the example to get the concept, if we say that $9 is what you need to survive, then at $10/hr you're really making "Necessities + $1/hr," and an increase from $10 to $11 is not merely a 10% raise - it's double what you were making before (after necessities).

The cost to provide the basic necessities does not increase as people get wealthier (contrary to what many economists seem to think), so you can subtract the same amount from the $20/hr wage and see that that person makes "Necessities + $11/hr." To get the same doubling of discretionary spending as a $1 raise at $10, you would have to go from $20 to $33. Which is fucking wild. As far as I can tell the biggest challenge to this is defining the cost of necessities, which can vary from place to place, but otherwise it sees to check out, conceptually.

The lesson here is that the law of diminishing returns is way more powerful than people give it credit for, and that a job that pays even a little bit more can make a big difference for a lot of people.