A group of LGBTQ people holding a rainbow heart celebrating International Pride Month.getty. Numerous major corporations retreated from Pride Month sponsorships this year, sending organizers, particularly for large-scale parades and festivals, scrambling to make up for budgetary shortfalls. This followed a more modest scale-back in corporate Pride Month support last year, according to CBS News. Coinciding with declining Pride Month support, more corporations, including Ford Motor, Molson Coors, Lowe’s, Target, Brown-Forman and Harley-Davidson, are no longer submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which ranks corporations by their stated policies and support of LGBTQ individuals in the workplace.All of which leads to the question of how important is corporate support to the LGBTQ Pride movement. According to many in the community, corporate support is largely performative, meant to serve corporate goals – “rainbow washing” – not support the real issues confronting LGBTQ individuals and the community

Americans have gone on a money-spending spree this spring — and not because they feel rich. Quite the opposite, with the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index falling nearly 30% since January.Already, 72% of consumers have changed their shopping habits per a Collage study, with many stockpiling goods and even “doom spending.” And retailers have played an active role in stoking those tariff anxieties — below are some examples of how.Trending Now: Mark Cuban: Trump’s Tariffs Will Affect This Class of People the MostFor You: 6 Popular SUVs That Aren't Worth the Cost -- and 6 Affordable AlternativesAnnouncing Future Price HikesThe most obvious way that retailers have spurred more spending is simply saying “Price hikes are coming.”Quynh Mai, founder of retailer PR agency Qulture, explained how effective the strategy has been. “Retailers from Walmart to Amazon have already warned their customers about rising prices and the media has been showing pictures of empty shelves. Customers, who remember scrambling for toilet paper, get the subliminal message and are pre-shopping before prices skyrocket, especially on high-ticket items like iPhones.”Read Next: Trump’s Tariffs: Here’s What Economists Think Will Happen After the 90-Day PausePreemptive Price Hikes Combined With ‘Pre-Tariff Sales’A sneakier tactic involves retailers hiking prices now, before tariffs have hit their wholesale costs and then announcing discounts and sales.“For example, say a flooring company paid $1.50 a square foot and they normally sell for $2.50 a square foot,” explained Melanie Musson, finance expert with InsuranceProviders.com. “Then they increase pricing to $3.50 a square foot and offer you a 10% ‘pre-tariff discount,’ you’re going to pay over $3 a square foot. The buyer feels like they got a deal, but they didn’t.”Highlighting Tariffs in Earnings CallsRetailers have banged the tariff drum on earnings calls, loudly and repeatedly.In fact, FactSet reported that 91% of the S&P 500 companies who have reported first quarter earnings mentioned tariffs