subsistence level

His income in the collective was only on the subsistence level.

Exports and imports were no longer a tiny margin in an economy just above the subsistence level.

The wage earners were well above the subsistence level as long as trade was good.

In the first case, a subsistence level is preserved; in the second, new levels of self-constitution are made possible.

The peasants represented over 80 percent of the total population, most of whom lived at or below subsistence level.