breadlines
Depression-era food queues
Breadlines are queues of people waiting to receive free food, typically bread or basic provisions, distributed by charities or government agencies during times of economic hardship.
The term evokes images of the Great Depression, when unemployed workers lined up for handouts.
Today breadlines appear both literally, at food banks and soup kitchens, and figuratively to suggest widespread poverty or economic collapse: If this policy continues, we'll all be standing in breadlines.
Extreme nutritional deprivation
- famineSevere food shortage
- malnutritionDisease from dietary inadequacy
- famishedIntensely, painfully hungry
- ravenousExtremely hungry, insatiable
sustenance · nourishment · scarcity · pangs · gaunt · emaciated · desperate · meager
Extreme poverty, lacking necessities
- impoverishmentState of extreme deprivation
- hardshipSuffering from difficult circumstances
- desperationUtter loss of hope
- hopelessnessState without hope
squalor · slums · homelessness · inequality · deprivation · subsistence · welfare · aid
Prolonged economic decline
- downturnEconomic decline period
- unemploymentBeing without paid work
- joblessLacking paid employment
- layoffsMass job eliminations
crash · 1930s · foreclosures · WPA · recovery · austerity · deflation
Remaining in expectation
- lineupOrdered list of participants
- crowdLarge public gathering
- sidewalkPaved pedestrian pathway
- snakingMoving in curves
long · endless · patience · standing · shuffling · block-long · orderly · slow-moving
Redeemable discount certificates
- rationsControlled food portions
- allocationsDesignated shares of resources
- shortagesInsufficient quantities available
- distributionAllocation across recipients
commodities · surplus · provisions · allotment · quota · supplies · SNAP · pantry
starvation
Extreme nutritional deprivation
- famineSevere food shortage
- malnutritionDisease from dietary inadequacy
- famishedIntensely, painfully hungry
ravenous · sustenance · nourishment · scarcity · pangs · gaunt · emaciated · desperate · meager · scraps
destitution
Extreme poverty, lacking necessities
- impoverishmentState of extreme deprivation
- hardshipSuffering from difficult circumstances
- desperationUtter loss of hope
hopelessness · squalor · slums · homelessness · inequality · deprivation · subsistence · welfare · aid · charity
recession
Prolonged economic decline
- downturnEconomic decline period
- unemploymentBeing without paid work
- joblessLacking paid employment
layoffs · crash · 1930s · foreclosures · WPA · recovery · austerity · deflation
waiting
Remaining in expectation
snaking · long · endless · patience · standing · shuffling · block-long · orderly · slow-moving · winding
coupons
Redeemable discount certificates
- rationsControlled food portions
- allocationsDesignated shares of resources
- shortagesInsufficient quantities available
distribution · commodities · surplus · provisions · allotment · quota · supplies · SNAP · pantry · WIC
- Interwar EconomicsGreat Depression, interwar period, hyperinflation, gold standard, New Deal
- welfare historypoor laws, poorhouse, poorhouses, workhouse, workhouses
- povertypoor, poverty rate, impoverished, generational poverty, poverty trap
- Early 1900sroaring twenties, flapper, jazz, speakeasy, prohibition
- urban lifesidewalks, neighborhood, apartments, skyline, buses
- communismMarx, Marxism, Leninism, Lenin, proletariat
breadlinesprosperity
Good fortune, success
affluence · wealth · economic boom · abundance · plenty
breadlinesfeast
Elaborate ceremonial meal
abundance · fine dining · feasting · cornucopia · food security
breadlinescountry club
Private recreational membership facility
high society · the elite · upper crust · privileged class · self-sufficiency