Hobby Lobby is raising its “minimum full-time hourly wage” to $18.50 starting in 2022.
The arts-and-crafts chain announced the upcoming pay increase Tuesday that will begin Jan. 1. It’s $1.50 an hour higher than the last increase that began in October 2020.
Hobby Lobby said it was one of the first retailers to establish a nationwide minimum hourly wage “well above the federal minimum wage, and has since raised its minimum wage twelve times over the last thirteen years.”
In 2014, the chain said it raised its full-time minimum wage to $15 “well before it became a trend with other retailers.”
“We have a long track record of taking care of our employees,” Hobby Lobby founder and CEO David Green said in a statement, adding the company has “worked hard over the years to provide the best pay and benefits in retail, which has allowed us to attract and retain an outstanding group of associates to serve our devoted customers.”
In October, the Oklahoma City-based chain said it was hiring 11,000 seasonal store employees for the holiday season and raised its part-time minimum hourly wage by 18% to $13.
Hobby Lobby, founded in 1972, operates 956 stores and has kept them closed on Sundays since 1998. To the chagrin of shoppers, last February, Hobby Lobby got rid of its popular 40% coupons.
The chain, too, is is no stranger to controversy. In 2014, Hobby Lobby won a Supreme Court case that allowed them to deny their employees access to birth control on the grounds it conflicted with religious beliefs.
