Starbucks Wants You to Pay $5 More for Coffee

Hey Frappuccino drinker, can you spare a fiver? Starbucks is hoping that its customers will begin ponying up an extra $5 beginning next month. No, not because that grande drink now costs $8. Starting Nov. 1, Starbucks will accept donations of $5 or more to its "Jobs for USA" program, and 100% of the money will be loaned to companies or groups that are able to create new jobs or stem job losses. Pony up, and you'll walk away with more than a do-gooder glow: Caffeine addicts who give will get a red, white, and blue wristband that reads "Indivisible."

The AP notes that job creation seems to be a bit of a pet project of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (see here). Starbucks is currently hiring about 200 people a day in the US as it remodels existing stores and adds new locations, but Schultz apparently wanted to do more. Starbucks will foot the bill incurred by getting loans out through the program, which will run indefinitely. (More Starbucks stories.)