Somebody today coined the term “hygiene poverty” which means not having enough money for things like toothpaste or perfume. It sounds exactly like normal poverty, like we don’t need a new term for that.

But it could be useful to categorise it. We already have food-poverty, bed-poverty, and housing-poverty. They are specific problems people have. People suffering one type of poverty are not necessarily suffering any of the others. So it is useful to be specific instead of lumping everyone together as if they are all face a more-or-less similar problem.

We should use, extend, and formalise this concept.