Two-minute read
Over the past year, mounting evidence from inside Iran’s media and economic reporting charts a grim reality: policies and practices linked to the ruling apparatus have not only failed to curb inequality, but they have actively produced and normalized a harsher, more extractive social order. From doctors forced out of practice to families unable to afford school supplies, the signs point to systemic impoverishment that strengthens elite control even as it sows explosive political risk.
A society reshaped by extraction
Independent and semi-official outlets have documented a cascade of social and economic indicators that together sketch a country sliding toward deeper class entrenchment. Reports show professionals abandoning their fields, housing costs devouring incomes, food and basic services becoming less affordable, and family structures fraying under economic pressure. For example, coverage in Arman Emrooz and Shargh highlights the troubling trend of medical professionals leaving clinical practice for other work—figures that point to a medical labor market under severe strain.
Those pressures are not accidental side effects: policy choices, institutional privileges and an economy skewed toward rent and patronage have made inequality a structural outcome. Widespread reporting shows that families in Tehran spend a disproportionate share of income on housing, while wage stagnation and inflation leave workers farther behind. Headlines such as “housing swallows 60% of Tehranis’ income” and “fixed wages, volatile prices” illustrate the lived reality of a population squeezed at both ends.
Watch and judge how #Iran's education system performs compared to #Japan's. pic.twitter.com/rjojOE8s1Q
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 25, 2023
Children priced out of education
Perhaps the starkest symptom of social decay is the rising cost of basic schooling. Recent reporting from Mehr News Agency finds that the price of school supplies in Tehran has surged—field reporting and market surveys estimate the cost of a simple school kit has risen into the millions of tomans, making “studying” effectively a luxury for many families. At the same time, industry representatives have publicly stated that millions of students cannot afford stationery and supplies and must rely on charity. These admissions expose a failure of public provision: education-related necessities are being externalized onto families and NGOs rather than addressed through state support.
Eghtesad 120 quoted Amir Toiyserkani, a producer and deputy head of stationery manufacturers, as saying, “There are 5 million students in the country who cannot buy school supplies, and charities supply them.” The admission underscores how market pressures and rising living costs are directly denying children the material prerequisites for schooling.
Privilege at the top, precarity below
While ordinary households struggle, regime elites and their networks continue to enjoy institutional advantages—salaries, allowances and sheltered positions that insulate them from economic pain. Commentators have highlighted how parliamentary seats and other public offices function as secure, well-compensated positions, detached from day-to-day material hardship faced by the majority. One columnist on the state-run Bahar News website asked pointedly whether representatives who rarely work could justify their privileges, arguing that oversight mechanisms have produced a legislature disconnected from the populace it ostensibly represents.
Pezeshkian’s confession: Iran’s economy in freefall, society on the brink of eruption https://t.co/HVrpJgh818
— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) August 11, 2025
This division—elite security versus public precarity—has a political logic. By allowing (and in some cases accelerating) economic strain, the regime preserves control: a population burdened by survival concerns finds its capacity for sustained political mobilization limited, while patronage channels cement the regime’s power.
The normalization of these injustices—through repeated headlines, official silence, and the substitution of charity for state responsibility—creates a dangerous political dynamic. When institutional actors make extraction and neglect ordinary, grievances accumulate beneath the surface. Historical and comparative evidence shows that prolonged, visible inequality combined with political exclusion and impunity tends to produce social unrest and, in many cases, sudden ruptures.