basic needs
Food, shelter, water
Basic needs are the essentials required for human survival and well-being—food, water, shelter, clothing, and often healthcare and safety.
The phrase appears in discussions of poverty, human rights, and development: The program ensures that families can meet their basic needs.
Distinguished from wants or luxuries, basic needs represent the minimum threshold for dignified existence.
- subsistenceMinimal means of living
- hand to mouthBarely meeting basic needs
- foodConsumable nourishment source
- bread and butterPrimary source of income
- livelihoodMeans of earning income
shelter · roof over head · clothing · water · poverty · air · warmth · necessity · bare minimum · social welfare · safety net · nourishment · food security · potable water · sanitation · medical care · resource scarcity · health
- living conditionshousing, income, employment, healthcare access, education access
- subsistencefood, hunger, starvation, sustenance, nourishment
- deprivationlack, deprivation, need, want, shortage
- necessitiesbasics, essentials, need, essential, necessities
- needsfood, water, shelter, sleep, air
- Maslow's hierarchyself-actualization, esteem, belongingness, physiological, self-transcendence
necessity vs. superfluity
basic needsluxuries
Non-essential costly pleasures
wants · extravagances · indulgences · frivolities · excess