on the breadline

on the breadline

1. (idiomatic) In a situation of extreme poverty; relying on food donations or having only enough to survive.
   • 2021 February 25, Lilac Mills, Sunset on the Square: Escape on a Spanish Holiday with this Heartwarming Love Story, London: Canelo, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN:

     She wasn't on the breadline exactly, but she didn't have an awful lot of spare cash to throw around, and she always, always lived within her means.

   • 2012 March 17, Russell M. Nash, Yellow Fever: An Englishman Falls Under the Spell of the Far East, Memoirs Publishing, →ISBN, →ISBN:

     This life continuously trapped on the breadline was not what I wanted, not forever.

   • 2014 January 16, Veronica Henry, Love on the Rocks, London: Orion, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN:

     He was wearing a grubby white shirt, jeans and scuffed black slip-on shoes. Anyone would think he was on the breadline too.

   • 2015, J. R. L. Anderson, Death on the Rocks: A Classic English Murder Mystery, London: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN:

     With capital of about £16,000 I wasn't exactly on the breadline.

   • 2012 September 20, Kevin Twaddle, Life on the Line: How to Lose a Million and So Much More, Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN:

     There were times where money was tight and we probably were on the breadline, but I still never really wanted for anything.

   • 1998, Keith Laybourn, Britain on the breadline: A social and political history of Britain 1918-1939, Gloucestershire: Sutton, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN:

     Britain survived on the breadline.

   • 1969, New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates‎, page 4044:

     It is ridiculous to put our own people on the breadline by reducing their spending power by an enormous sum to save very much less in overseas funds.

   • 1993, Valerie Møller, Quality of Life in Unemployment: A Survey Evaluation of Black Township Dwellers, Pretoria: HSRC Publishers, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 70, →ISBN:

     The alternative argument states that, for people living on the breadline where every penny counts, the loss of a job may be the last straw factor.

• below the breadline