Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

Re “Push to Lift Hourly Pay Is Now Serious Business” (front page, July 24):

Raising the minimum wage in New York would harm rather than help workers in the fast-food industry. Some employees no doubt would be given fewer work hours or become jobless as a result of the wage increase. Many others would never get a job at all.

But the labor unions behind the increase hope to benefit because the change could bring them more members and fill their dwindling coffers. Moreover, the state wage board’s decision to recommend a $15-an-hour minimum wage for just one industry segment is arbitrary, blatantly discriminatory and little more than payback to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s political supporters.

Politicians should keep their ideology out of the marketplace.

STEVE CALDEIRA
President and Chief Executive
International Franchise Association
Washington

Here.

Here.

To the Editor:

Frank Bruni rightly notes the lack of sleep suffered by high school students under the pressure to excel (“Today’s Exhausted Superkids,” column, July 29). Another factor also contributes to students’ exhaustion: the poor fit between their biorhythms and school schedules.

We know that teenagers’ bodies naturally want to stay up late and wake up late. School districts that have recognized this and moved their high school and middle school start times later report improved student health and academic performance.

But too many districts, like my own, in which high school starts at 7:30 a.m., persist in working against the physical needs of their students rather than with them. We can address this one cause of student fatigue, and I hope that more school districts will do so.

ELIZABETH COSGRIFF

Merion Station, Pa.

Note from KBJ: If the problem is having to rise early, then the school day should extend from 10:00 to 6:00.

Here.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re “What Makes a Shooter Do It?” (news analysis, Sunday Review, July 26):

A common denominator in the growing incidence of mass shootings—the sociopathic dysfunction of the perpetrators—mandates the legislated imposition of universal and exacting background checks upon all would-be firearms buyers.

Yet, because of fear of gun-lobby retribution, congressional inaction prevails: a betrayal of the general welfare akin to acquiescence, if not outright complicity, in the proliferating onslaught.

RICHARD BOYCE

San Francisco

Seven-Inning Felix (12-6) got bombed this afternoon, at home. He threw 106 pitches in six and two-thirds innings, giving up seven earned runs to the third-place Arizona Diamondbacks. He's on pace to win 18.3 games. How is this man worth $24,857,000 per year? It's mind-boggling. He's as mediocre as pitchers get.