Isnt this company one of the ones that hiked their own wages for virtue-signalling purposes?
They hiked their own wages as a means of putting their competitors out of business.
Starbucks is a massive operation. They could absorb the wage hit by temporarily sacrificing some profits, plus playing games with workers hours (article on them doing this just yesterday) plus a “minimal” price hike (seen here)
Things that smaller competitors, without Starbucks economies of scale can’t easily use to absorb.
Yes. I remember telling a "barista" that I thought the drink price hikes were his way of having his customers pay for other people's college expenses. She disagreed; but, I really think that is a reasonable assumption.