bread-and-butter issue
1
2.8
- noun
- /ˈbrɛd ənd ˈbʌtər ˈɪʃu/
- Informal
:
cuestión básica
- The candidates have debated bread-and-butter issues like education, safety, and transportation.
Examples
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Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said in an interview that one challenge for the presidential candidates will be to keep the focus on those bread-and-butter issues.
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And because ordinary people care about bread-and-butter issues, these concerns figure prominently in candidates' agendas.
Academic text (2004) -
Nuclear energy and an independent nuclear deterrent are both goals that resonate and are popular with a broad swathe of the Iranian public for roughly the same reasons that energy independence is a bread-and-butter issue in the US.
Blog text (12) -
But as I have pointed out elsewhere, 'Although somewhat ideologically compromised from its early history, this tradition sustained a certain militancy with regard to bread-and-butter issues' (Green 1996a, 12).
Academic text (1998) -
Hence, a new ANC government could face an electorate concerned about immediate bread-and-butter issues and hard-pressed to understand why some decisions about the allocation of scarce resources needed to be coordinated with the neighboring SADCC states.
Academic text (1991) -
We're obviously concerned about drought in California or hurricanes and floods along our coastlines; all those things are bread-and-butter issues that touch on American families.
Synonyms
4
4.8
An issue that affects people's money or jobs
How Important
51
3.2
41
3.0
- Informal
1
2.8
906
1.7
6
5.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
bread-and-butter + issue
The phrase 'bread-and-butter' evokes staple food items and by extension basic livelihood, so a learner who knows 'bread', 'butter', and 'issue' can usually infer that a 'bread-and-butter issue' relates to practical, day-to-day financial or livelihood concerns. However the categorical shift from literal food to 'income/basic needs' is a conventionalized metaphorical use and carries idiomatic nuance that may not be fully predictable for a B1 learner without some exposure; similar metaphors exist in many languages, which aids inferability but does not make it fully compositional.
Etymology
The phrase bread-and-butter issue may come from the simple image of bread and butter as the basic foods people need every day. Because these foods stood for people's jobs and money, the phrase now means 'an issue that affects people's money or daily needs'.