Starting January 1st, 2012 wage earners in San Francisco will be making a minimum of $10.24 per hour. Thanks to 2003's Prop L, which ensures the local minimum wage increases along with inflation, San Francisco will be the first in the country to mandate a rate of pay higher than ten bucks an hour.

Although the bump in pay for the city's bottom hourly earners is only 32 cents more than the current $9.92, one San Francisco Living Wage advocate believes that extra change could give the local economy a kick in the pants once workers start feeling it jingling around in their pockets. The Chamber of Commerce thinks it could slow down job growth, which the city has been enjoying a little bit of in the past 10 months. In November, the Mayor's office reported that the local unemployment rate was 8.1%, down from 9.5% last January. The rest of the country, on the other hand, wasn't doing so well as of July.

[SFEx]