<P> The panel was chaired by Robert Michael, former Dean of the Harris School of the University of Chicago . According to Michael, the official U.S. poverty measure "has not kept pace with far - reaching changes in society and the economy ." The panel proposed a model based on disposable income: </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> According to the panel's recommended measure, income would include, in addition to money received, the value of non-cash benefits such as food stamps, school lunches and public housing that can be used to satisfy basic needs . The new measure also would subtract from gross income certain expenses that cannot be used for these basic needs, such as income taxes, child - support payments, medical costs, health - insurance premiums and work - related expenses, including child care . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> According to the panel's recommended measure, income would include, in addition to money received, the value of non-cash benefits such as food stamps, school lunches and public housing that can be used to satisfy basic needs . The new measure also would subtract from gross income certain expenses that cannot be used for these basic needs, such as income taxes, child - support payments, medical costs, health - insurance premiums and work - related expenses, including child care . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> <P> Other policy analysts, such as Rebecca Blank of the Brookings Institute, have criticized the outdated foundations of the formula for the federal poverty line of 3 x the subsistence food budget . This formula is based on the 1955 Household Food Consumption Survey, which found that in emergency situation when funds were low, a family of three spent one third of their after tax income on food . From this fact it was extrapolated that three times the subsistence food budget was the poverty line for a family of three . Based on more current household surveys of food consumption it is estimated that in 2008 the food multiplier would be 7.8 rather than 3 times a subsistence food budget . </P>

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