David Neumark, [Distinguished Professor], is a labor economist at the University of California, Irvine. NEUMARK: I’d say my mission as an economic researcher is to really try to provide the most solid and most objective evidence I can on policy questions, and the ones I’m most interested in are policy questions relating to inequality. Really, two dimensions I focus on. One is anti-poverty policy: How do we raise earnings of people at the bottom? And the other dimension I focus on is discrimination. DUBNER: So if you’re concerned with anti-poverty, I would assume that you are a big supporter of minimum-wage laws, including the new proposed $15 federal minimum-wage law, yes? NEUMARK: Not exactly, no. 
 
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