David Neumark
Distinguished Professor of Economics | UC Irvine
Irvine, CA, UNITED STATES
David Neumark is a labor economist whose work focuses on minimum wages, discrimination in the work force, and worker compensation.
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Biography
David Neumark is an American economist and a Chancellor's Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine, where he also directs the Economic Self-Sufficiency Policy Research Institute.
Neumark graduated with a B.A. in economics in 1982 from the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude, with Honors. He went on to complete his M.A. in 1985 and Ph.D. in 1987 in economics from Harvard University. His fields were labor economics and econometrics. His dissertation was entitled Male-Female Differentials in the Labor Force: Measurement, Causes and Probes, and published in parts in the Journal of Human Resources.
From 1989 to 1994, Neumark was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He became a professor at Michigan State University in 1994 and remained at MSU until 2004. Since 2005, he is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
Neumark's research interests include minimum wages and living wages, affirmative action, sex differences in labor markets, the economics of aging, and school-to-work programs, and has also done work in demography, health economics, development, industrial organization, and finance. His work has been published in economics journals like the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Labor Economics, the Journal of Human Resources. He is currently the editor of the IZA Journal of Labor Policy and a co-editor of the Journal of Urban Economics.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Health Economics
Finance
Gender Inequality in Relationships
Economics
Demographics
Accomplishments (3)
2016 Harris Distinguished Visiting Professor
Presented by Clemson University
2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
For "Minimum Wages"
2000 Minnesota Award
For “Age Discrimination Laws and Labor Market Efficiency”
Education (3)
Harvard University: Ph.D., Economics
Harvard University: M.A., Economics
University of Pennsylvania: B.A., Economics
Affiliations (2)
- NBER - Research Associate
- IZA - Research Fellow
Links (1)
Media Appearances (7)
Why Women Earn Less: The Link Between Misogyny and the Gender Wage Gap
Devdiscourse online
2025-02-06
A study by…the University of California, Irvine, reveals that misogyny … is a significant driver of the gender wage gap, contradicting traditional economic models. … Molly Maloney and David Neumark from the University of California Irvine, delve into whether explicit misogyny is a key driver of the gender wage gap. Unlike prior research that focused on statistical discrimination or implicit biases, the study uses an innovative approach, Google Trends data to quantify misogyny and measure its economic impact.
Do Minimum Wages Reduce Job Opportunities For Blacks?
Hoover Institution online
2024-12-11
David Neumark, Hoover visiting fellow and distinguished professor of economics and codirector of the Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy at the University of California, Irvine discussed “Do Minimum Wages Reduce Job Opportunities for Blacks?” a paper with Jyotsana Kala (UC Irvine).
Dickies moving its headquarters from Texas to Orange County
KABC online
2024-12-05
The workwear apparel brand Dickies is moving its headquarters from Texas to California. … David Neumark, professor of economics at UC Irvine, said people should focus on the companies dedicated to calling California home. "The health of existing businesses and what's going to make a business grow a little faster or stay open or what's going to maybe lead somebody to start a business is so much more important than whether a business comes or goes," Neumark said.
Disney’s $43 Million Gender Pay Settlement Highlights Need For Salary History Bans
Forbes online
2024-11-26
The most striking aspect of the pay disparities alleged at Disney is the impact of asking about a prospective employee’s previous pay. This is illustrated by an analysis of pay at Disney completed by David Neumark, an economist and gender pay gap expert at the University of California, Irvine. Neumark found that Disney paid women 2% less than men. … According to the complaint, there’s only a one in a billion chance of obtaining Neumark’s results if no gender differences exist.
Disney settles suit over women's pay for $43 million
Reuters online
2024-11-26
Walt Disney has agreed to pay $43.3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its female employees in California earned $150 million less than their male counterparts over an eight-year period, the plaintiffs' lawyers said in a statement on Monday. … The case was also supported by an analysis of Disney's human resource data from April 2015 until December 2022 that found female Disney employees were paid roughly 2% less than their male counterparts. The analysis was conducted by David Neumark, a University of California, Irvine professor and labor economist.
Proposition 32 was just rejected. In blue California, why did the minimum-wage boost fail?
Los Angeles Times online
2024-11-19
David Neumark, a UC Irvine economist and national expert on minimum wages and their economic effects, said he was surprised by the outcome and that it was hard to pinpoint a single factor for the measure’s defeat. … “The argument that higher wages lead to lower employment does not have a lot of evidence going for it,” he said. “Instead, in situations where employers have some market power, higher minimum wages can raise employment.”
Lessons from business relocations in California
LAist online
2024-10-09
Despite complaints about high taxes, expensive housing and burdensome regulations — grousing that has been going on for decades — the state remains the national leader both for tech startups and for its share of big companies. “I agree California is a more onerous place to do business,” said David Neumark, a UC Irvine economics professor who has studied relocations. “But it’s not like we’re some basket case.” … Neumark, the UC Irvine professor, is working with Bohn on that research. He also co-authored a couple of research papers that examined the issue in 2004 and 2007, so he knows the concern about businesses leaving the state is not new.
Articles (3)
Do opioids help injured workers recover and get back to work? the impact of opioid prescriptions on duration of temporary disability
National Bureau of Economic ResearchBogdan Savych, David Neumark, Randall Lea
2018 We estimate the effect of opioid prescriptions on the duration of temporary disability benefits among workers with work-related low back injuries. We use local opioid prescribing patterns to construct an instrumental variable that generates variation in opioid prescriptions but is arguably unrelated to injury severity or other factors affecting disability duration. Local prescribing patterns have a strong relationship with whether injured workers receive opioid prescriptions, including longer-term prescriptions. We find that more longer-term opioid prescribing leads to considerably longer duration of temporary disability, but little effect of a small number of opioid prescriptions over a short period of time.
People versus machines: the impact of minimum wages on automatable jobs
Labour EconomicsGrace Lordan, David Neumark
2018 We study the effect of minimum wage increases on employment in automatable jobs – jobs in which employers may find it easier to substitute machines for people – focusing on low-skilled workers for whom such substitution may be spurred by minimum wage increases. Based on CPS data from 1980 to 2015, we find that increasing the minimum wage decreases significantly the share of automatable employment held by low-skilled workers, and increases the likelihood that low-skilled workers in automatable jobs become nonemployed or employed in worse jobs. The average effects mask significant heterogeneity by industry and demographic group, including substantive adverse effects for older, low-skilled workers in manufacturing. We also find some evidence that the same changes improve job opportunities for higher-skilled workers. The findings imply that groups often ignored in the minimum wage literature are in fact quite vulnerable to employment changes and job loss because of automation following a minimum wage increase.
Declining Teen Employment: Minimum Wages, Other Explanations, and Implications for Human Capital Investment
Mercatus Working PaperDavid Neumark, Cortnie Shupe
2018 We explore the decline in teen employment in the United States since 2000, which was sharpest for those age 16–17. We consider three explanatory factors: a rising minimum wage that could reduce employment opportunities for teens and potentially increase the value of investing in schooling; rising returns to schooling; and increasing competition from immigrants that, like the minimum wage, could reduce employment opportunities and raise the returns to human capital investment. We find that higher minimum wages are the predominant factor explaining changes in the schooling and workforce behavior of those age 16–17 since 2000. We also consider implications for human capital. Higher minimum wages have led both to fewer teens in school and employed at the same time, and to more teens in school but not employed, which is potentially consistent with a greater focus on schooling. We find no evidence that higher minimum wages have led to greater human capital investment. If anything, the evidence points to adverse effects on longer-run earnings for those exposed to these higher minimum wages as teenagers.
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