Target to raise minimum wage to $10 an hour

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Target is set to bump its minimum pay to $10 an hour starting next month.

The discount retailer has about 341,000 employees at nearly 1,800 stores nationwide.

The announcement follows raises from Walmart and Sam's Club who bumped the hourly pay for more than one million employees to an average of $13.38 in February.

Target's actions come as the income divide has emerged as a key issue nationwide in a presidential election year. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have seized on wage disparity and the plight of the working poor in their fight for the Democratic presidential nomination.

California and New York will become the highest-paid minimum-wage states in the nation after their governors each reached deals with lawmakers to raise the lowest amount a worker can be paid to a record-shattering $15 an hour.

The Associated Press contributed to this report