When you increase the minimum wage, two things happen. Some people lose their jobs while those who keep their jobs see an increase in their paycheck. Unfortunately, politicians focus on the second effect and often ignore the first. I thought of this when I saw the latest AEI report from Seattle. It said that the $15 minimum wage increase “is getting off to a pretty bad start.” Leah Jessen, writing for the Daily Signal, wonders whether the loss of 700 restaurant jobs in the first nine months of this year might be due to minimum wage hikes on restaurant jobs. That seems a reasonable conclusion. The Seattle City Council passed a $15 minimum wage ordinance that is being phased in. On April 1, the minimum wage jumped to $11 per hour. And employers are anticipating the next jump to $15 per hour. Mark Perry is an AEI scholar and economic professor at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus. He sees a contrast between Seattle and the rest of the state. There has been an increase of 5,800 new restaurant job positions in the rest of the state of Washington. This is his careful conclusion: “It’s too soon to tell for sure, but there is already some preliminary evidence that the recent minimum wage hike to $11 per hour, along with the pending increase of an additional $4 an hour by 2017 for some businesses, has started having a negative effect on restaurant jobs in the great Seattle area.” You don’t have to have an economic degree to figure this out. Imagine you own a restaurant and have to pay your employees more. You can try to raise prices to cover the extra cost but this might mean fewer people eat at your restaurant. Those in the city may bring a bag lunch. Those in the suburbs may stop driving to the city. The only other way to make ends meet is to continue with fewer employees. Seattle shouldn’t be surprised about the loss of restaurant jobs. We have seen it before time and time again.