the.com/subsistence
Living at the exact point where enough meets nothing left over.
means The minimum level of resources — food, income, or production — needed to stay alive, with no margin for extra.
from From Latin subsistere, 'to stand still, hold out, stop' — built from sub- ('under, close to') plus sistere ('to stand'), itself tied to stare ('to stand firm'). The word originally carried a sense of persisting or remaining in place, and that idea of just barely holding your ground is still buried in its modern use: subsistence is existence that stands, but only just.
- economic baseline
- producing just enough to survive, not trade
- etymology
- from latin sistere, to stand firm beneath
- modern irony
- billionaires call extreme simplicity minimalism, not subsistence