$4 seems minuscule, but you multiple that by 8 hours a day for 120 days (figure 80 days worked per employee) times how ever many employees the store has (lets call it 30) and your looking at $77k per store.

You say it’s a large corporation and they can afford it, but that extra $77k comes from each individual stores profits. I don’t know there finances, but that has to be a huge hit in profit.

With that said, shutting down the stores completely is an even bigger hit in the profits in the long run. It seems like little to no profit for 4 months so your loyal employees can get some well deserved extra pay isn’t a bad idea unless it would in fact put the individual store in the red financially.

Plus most employees are probably part time and not working 8hr days/40hr weeks, so that number is probably less.