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In late October 2025, the Iranian regime once again sought to present an image of economic “transparency.” Fatemeh Mohajerani, the government’s spokesperson, proudly announced that the official poverty line for 2024–2025 had been set at 6,128,739 tomans per person per month. The regime framed this announcement as proof of economic accountability. Yet behind the sterile numbers lies a grim reality — one of widespread hunger, eroded livelihoods, and a society increasingly crushed under the weight of systemic poverty.
The figure marks a rise of nearly 2.5 million tomans compared to the previous year. But far from signaling improvement, this adjustment merely reflects galloping inflation and the government’s cynical attempt to normalize destitution. Independent economists call it what it is: a deliberate misrepresentation designed to conceal the true extent of hardship endured by millions of Iranian families.
How Many #Iranians Live Below the #Poverty Line?https://t.co/fClcBw6aLX
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 11, 2024
A Manufactured Statistic Amid Widespread Suffering
According to Donya-e-Eqtesad, Iran’s poverty rate has now reached 36 percent — the highest in over a decade. That means nearly 30 million Iranians can no longer afford their basic needs. The regime’s own statistics confirm the contradiction: while the official inflation rate stands at 37.1 percent and last year’s economic growth was reported at a meager 3.1 percent, chronic inflation above 30 percent for six consecutive years has effectively turned the Iranian economy into what analysts describe as a “factory of poverty.”
According to multiple regime and international sources, Iran’s poverty crisis is far deeper than officials admit. In September 2024, former welfare minister Ahmad Meydari acknowledged that at least 30 percent of Iranians—around 25 million people—live in poverty, with about 6 percent, or 5 million, trapped in extreme poverty, unable to afford even food. Yet other state and international data point to a far bleaker picture: the World Bank warned in late 2023 that 40 percent of Iranians were at risk of falling into poverty, while reports from Khabar Online and government-linked economists such as Hossein Raghfar have estimated that half the population—over 40 million people—now live below the poverty line.
The roots of Iran’s current crisis run far deeper than the 2018 U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal. Nearly five decades of systemic corruption, economic mismanagement, and the diversion of national wealth to security and proxy forces have hollowed out the economy. The 2018 sanctions shock merely accelerated a long decline already set in motion by chronic budget deficits, the regime’s habit of borrowing from the Central Bank, and the collapse of domestic production under state monopolies and Revolutionary Guard control.
https://twitter.com/iran_policy/status/1973389026523570646
The Real Poverty Line: A Family’s Struggle to Survive
Labor activists have called the government’s number “a line of death, not poverty.” Based on Iran’s average household size of 3.3 members, a family needs roughly 20 million tomans per month merely to survive. In stark contrast, the official minimum wage for 2024 stands at just over 10 million tomans, less than half the basic requirement.
Even with cash subsidies and food vouchers, the gap remains staggering. Labor expert Faramarz Tofighi, cited by Donya-ye Eghtesad on September 29, 2025, said that with inflation above 45 percent, the real cost of a minimal livelihood for a working family has risen to about 50 million tomans per month—a figure implicitly acknowledged even in government welfare calculations. By contrast, the official minimum wage, roughly 15–16 million tomans, covers barely a third of what regime-linked analysts now admit is the true poverty line.
https://twitter.com/iran_policy/status/1981416972639490436
The Expanding “Working Poor” and the Collapse of the Middle Class
The regime’s own data now expose an even deeper social fracture. According to Eghtesad Online on October 7, 2025, the latest Labor Force Survey by Iran’s Statistics Center shows that 41 million people of working age are without jobs, whether unemployed or economically inactive. Only 26.9 million are counted as economically active, meaning less than 38 percent of the working-age population holds employment—mostly in low-income service and informal sectors. Youth unemployment stands at 19 percent, women’s joblessness exceeds 15 percent, and underemployment has risen to 7.6 percent. Even those formally employed are increasingly poor: wages stagnate while inflation above 45 percent has eroded real income, producing a nation of working poor where stable, productive jobs have become the exception rather than the rule.
Between 2017 and 2024, the distance between middle-income families and the poverty threshold shrank by 22 percent, meaning countless formerly stable households now live one paycheck away from destitution.
This deterioration is starkly visible in basic nutrition. Parliamentary research shows that by 2022, over half of Iranians consumed fewer than 2,100 calories per day. With poverty now at 36 percent and food inflation soaring — 41 percent for food in early 2025 and 57.9 percent by late summer — this figure has undoubtedly worsened. Prices for staple goods have exploded: beans up 250 percent, chicken over 50 percent, and Iranian rice tripled in cost. Many families who once gave up red meat can no longer afford poultry or legumes, increasing the risk of malnutrition and long-term health crises.
#Iran’s Ruling Elite Trapped Between Economic Collapse and Public Furyhttps://t.co/LB90nyvc0L
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 20, 2025
Denial, Manipulation, and the Regime’s Political Agenda
Economic and labor figures across Iran have denounced the government’s manipulation of poverty statistics. Hossein Kamali, secretary-general of the Islamic Labor Party, stated that “changing the measurement tools does not erase poverty.” The so-called poverty line, he added, “fails to account for real living costs and ignores entire groups — workers, pensioners, children, and elderly women — who are being crushed by inflation.”
In rural and marginalized urban areas, 40 to 50 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Children are increasingly deprived of education and nutrition, and elderly citizens struggle to access healthcare. What remains of Iran’s middle class is rapidly collapsing, turning poverty from an economic condition into a social catastrophe.
While regime-linked economists point to a slight improvement in the Gini coefficient — a measure of inequality — this “improvement” merely reflects the fact that everyone has become poorer, not that the poor have grown wealthier.
NCRI Statement: #Iranian Regime Sets Minimum Wage 3.5 Times Below Poverty Linehttps://t.co/y3mbcfqfyB
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) March 17, 2025
A “Line of Death,” Not Poverty
Ultimately, the government’s declared poverty line is not an indicator of economic policy but an instrument of denial. Behind these numbers lies a brutal truth: millions of Iranians go to bed hungry, children are forced out of school, and the elderly suffer without medical care.
Skyrocketing rents (over 40 percent annual increase), failed welfare programs, and ongoing political crises have made poverty a structural feature of life under the clerical regime. Yet, instead of addressing the causes, Khamenei’s regime hides behind fabricated statistics — an attempt to disguise the collapse of a system that has long abandoned its people.
In today’s Iran, the “poverty line” no longer marks the limit of economic survival. It marks the moral and political bankruptcy of a regime that sustains itself by sacrificing the welfare of an entire nation.