The Bureau of the Census held a Conference on the Measurement of Noncash Benefits on December 12 to 14, 1985 in Williamsburg, Virginia. The impetus for the conference was strong growth in noncash benefits during the past two decades and the recent publication by the Census Bureau of experimental estimates of the number of persons in poverty when income is defined to include the value of certain government noncash benefits. These estimates were published in Technical Papers 50, 51, 52 and 55.