refers to subsistence level housing, coined by Harold Ickes, Esq. Roosevelt Administration advisor. Protologism 1934, neologism 1954 on publication of "The Secret Diaries of Harold Ickes - The First One Thousand Days." Low is a reference to economic class status (as in lowborn) and 'cost' is the price of acquisition. It has been correctly applied to a fewe other necessities of life, like housing, but even electricity and telephone have migrated to the specialty descriptor 'lifeline.' Consumer goods that are inexpensive are not 'low-cost.' Since when did something that is government sponsored or acquired ever cost very little; usually just the opposite. The Wall Street Journal has recently and repeatedly used the phrase in headlines incorrectly to apply to the 'low-cost' acquisition of deep well oil reserves by a private holding company that sells off the shallow wells at a gain and keeps the deep ones in the hopes that the high price of oil will justify the future cost of deep extraction.

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