FRANKFURT, June 27 (Reuters) - The ECB should abandon targeting headline inflation and focus instead on price growth in discretionary spending to protect the bloc’s poorest, a paper to be presented to policymakers at the bank’s preeminent research conference argued on Friday.

The ECB targets inflation at 2% and a soon-to-be-concluded review will not even discuss the definition of the target as policymakers have long argued that using a different measures, like underlying inflation, or figures incorporating housings costs, could sow confusion.

But the paper written for the ECB Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal next week argues that the current framework disproportionately hurts low income workers and leads to an inferior outcome for society.