The Financial Times leads today with ‘Berlin insists on eurozone austerity.’
Austerity (n.)
The general idea of ‘austerity’ is that of not having money due to low or poor economic growth.
At the moment the term is being used a lot in the media to describe how governments are greatly reducing the money they spend on programmes and policies.
eg David Cameron: scaling back austerity measures is ‘wrong thing to do’
Common collocations:
austerity measures
austerity programmes
austerity policies
In some countries, we’re living in a time of austerity.
The opposite of ‘austerity’ when referring to government expenditure is ‘stimulus’:
eg The political failure of Obama’s stimulus package : The New Yorker
You can describe someone as being ‘austere’ or living a life of austerity.
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