Target promises to raise minimum wage to $15 per hour amid campaign championed by Bernie Sanders

Retailer will first boost wage to $11 an hour, among the nation's highest

Target stores, like this one seen is shown in San Diego, California on May 17, 2016, will soon be paying employees at least $11 an hour ( REUTERS/Mike Blake)

Target will pay its employees at least $11 an hour and plans to move toward a $15 minimum wage, putting the major retailer on track to realise a prominent liberal ambition.

The $11-an-hour wage will be effective at the start of October, Target said, and the company pledged to offer a $15 minimum wage by 2020. The company framed it as a way to help attract and retain employees. Target says it employs about 323,000 people.

“Target has a long history of investing in our team members”, Target CEO and chairman Brian Cornell said in a press release, saying the company would be “providing even more meaningful pay, as well as the tools, training and support our team needs to build their skills, develop professionally and offer the service and expertise that set Target apart”.

In committing to a $15 wage, the Minneapolis-headquartered company has embraced a goal that has animated the American left in recent years.

A $15 minimum wage has become a rallying cry for organised labour and liberal advocacy organisations, taken up by Democratic politicians and championed by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Advocates call it an urgently needed corrective to widening income inequality and stagnating working-class wages.

For now, the $11 minimum target wage would be a higher base rate than in all but two states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Massachusetts and Washington both have $11-an-hour minimum wages.

The federal minimum wage sits at $7.25 an hour, but numerous states and cities have boosted their wage floor above that level.

California, where Democrats control every lever of power, has moved to lift its minimum wage to $15 by 2022. Seattle, New York City and Washington, DC are moving toward a $15-an-hour wage, while voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington approved measures in 2016 to boost their state wages.