Making Operational the Concept of Maintenance Consumption

In death cases, it is customary in virtually all states (Kentucky being one exception) to make a deduction for personal consumption from estimates of the decedent's earnings. The terms "maintenance," "personal maintenance" or "maintenance consumption" appear in court opinions in a surprisingly large number of states. The context in which these terms are used suggests a deduction for the decedent's personal consumption which is smaller than the decedent's expected or likely consumption. Because these terms appear with some regularity in court opinions in a number of states, the meaning and possible methods of measuring "maintenance consumption" deserve further scrutiny. This paper explains how the concept of "maintenance consumption" evolved in various Pennsylvania court decisions and suggests some procedures for computing maintenance using, alternatively, the Federal government's poverty thresholds and the 1980 recommendations of the Expert Committee on Family Budget Revisions.