In the Media

Rebecca Blank PhD ’83, who helped reform how the government measures poverty, has died at 67, reports Alex Traub for The New York Times. Blank’s work “changed the poverty calculus in numerous ways, for instance by using as a basis not merely food budgets but also an array of consumer expenditures, including on clothing and shelter,” writes Traub. “In addition, it updated the view of a family’s financial resources to take account of government benefits not issued as cash.”