Four-minute read
The Iranian regime’s systematic plundering of national wealth and gross mismanagement have plunged a generation of retirees, once the backbone of the nation’s professional class, into unprecedented hardship. These individuals, who dedicated their lives to serving the country, now find themselves abandoned, struggling for basic necessities as their pensions evaporate against soaring inflation and their access to essential services like healthcare diminishes.
The plight of Iran’s retirees is a stark testament to a regime that prioritizes its own survival and corrupt dealings over the welfare of its citizens, effectively dismantling the middle class and pushing millions into absolute poverty.
State-Run Funds With Empty Coffers
A devastating combination of wrong economic policies, particularly by the State Pension Fund, and a lack of up-to-date planning and management inefficiency has led to current ruinous state of Iran’s pension funds.
This mismanagement is not accidental but a pattern of behavior that has inflicted “deep wounds on the weak and powerless body of state retirees,” a detrimental process that, alarmingly, “still continues with great force,” according to Abdolreza Jahanmardi, a former university lecturer and retiree activist, in an interview with the state-run ILNA news agency.
How Khamenei’s Economic Empire Seized #Iran’s Telecom Giant and Plundered Retirees’ Pensionshttps://t.co/x0yDXsW3VZ
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 26, 2025
One glaring example of this malfeasance is the failure to deposit funds from the sale of South Aluminum shares into the State Pension Fund. As acknowledged by Ahmad Bigdeli, a representative for Khodabandeh in the twelfth parliament, 9 trillion tomans were supposed to be allocated from this sale for the 2022-2023 equalization payments and other outstanding debts owed to state retirees.
These funds were specifically meant to cover arrears, including 20 months of overdue payments related to a 15% restorative decree for 200,000 retirees from the Ministry of Health and medical universities. These critical payments have been delayed for four years. Jahanmardi poignantly asks: “Why was the money from the sale of South Aluminum shares not paid to the State Pension Fund? Where did these funds go, and into whose pockets did they flow?!” The question hangs heavy, pointing directly to systemic corruption within the regime.
Delayed Justice And Denied Healthcare
The regime’s mismanagement extends beyond missing funds to a systematic failure in administering basic entitlements. Retirees from the Ministry of Health have faced a four-year delay in the issuance of their 28-year service classification decrees, a critical administrative lapse stemming from “mismanagement.” Furthermore, overdue payments for a group of retirees from before 2017, including entitlements for taking part in the war with Iraq, have been delayed for over four years, highlighting a deep-seated crisis in processing and disbursing rightful dues.
May 4—Isfahan, central Iran
Retirees of the steel and mining industry resume weekly protest rallies to reiterate demands for higher pensions and basic needs.
Protesters chant, "We're fed up with this injustice"#IranProtestspic.twitter.com/W2iIHH5Sc3— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 4, 2025
Access to healthcare, a fundamental right, has also become a source of profound distress. Jahanmardi identifies “treatment” as one of the “fundamental problems of state retirees.” He points to the disastrous supplementary insurance contract, awarded to a company that, according to retired experts’ investigations, had over 2,200 complaints against it.
This contract features “a very low tariff ceiling, inefficient services, and costly deductibles,” leading to a significant “decline in the level of medical services for retirees.” These inefficient contracts have effectively nullified Article 85 concerning supplementary insurance for retirees, leaving it “in limbo and forgotten.” Adding insult to injury, reimbursement for supplementary insurance claims in 2025 is being delayed by a full year.
A Losing Battle Against Inflation
The regime’s paltry attempts to adjust pensions are grossly inadequate in the face of hyperinflation. In 2024, overdue payments for the first phase of pension equalization, which should have covered eight months, have still not been made. Moreover, according to the ILNA report, the pension fund management has rejected the input of retired experts who called for a revision of the “flawed equalization calculation method,” a method that results in a loss of at least 1 to 2 million tomans per month for state retirees.
#IranProtests: Retirees and Workers Rise Up Across Dozens of Cities Over Economic Injusticehttps://t.co/4Ot5ST9SGO
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 21, 2025
The so-called “annual salary increase” for state retirees, including those from medical universities, was a mere 20% this year. This figure is a cruel joke when juxtaposed with the reality of “100% inflation or even more on essential life items,” as stated by Jahanmardi. He describes this 20% increase as “something akin to nothing,” which only serves to “deepen the subsistence crisis.”
The financial situation has deteriorated to such an extent that an employee who could comfortably manage their household expenses during their working years now finds themselves, fifteen or twenty years into retirement, “trapped in a subsistence predicament.” Their pension is insufficient to cover even “two weeks of expenses each month.”
The Decimation Of The Middle Class
The consequences of these wrong policies by the regime and its pension funds are far-reaching, leading to what Jahanmardi describes as “the elimination of the country’s middle class.” He emphasizes that “many of these employees are old, specialized, and educated forces who once belonged to the country’s middle class and had comfortable lives but have now fallen below the poverty line.” His stark assessment is that “today, we don’t have anything called a middle class; wage earners, from simple wage earners to the educated and experienced forces, have all fallen into the valley of absolute poverty and do not have a lifeline to get out of this deep valley.”
Not only has the purchasing power of pensions plummeted to its lowest possible level, but the quality of welfare services for retirees has also drastically declined.
Protests sweep Iran as retirees, workers, and traders rally in multiple cities https://t.co/PgqNytlfqO
— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) April 21, 2025
1.6 Million Retirees Abandoned
The scale of this human tragedy is immense. Jahanmardi concludes that “currently, an economic crisis has occurred for 1.6 million state retirees living below the poverty line.” In the face of this widespread suffering, there is a deafening silence and a complete lack of accountability from the regime.
This devastating situation is not merely a result of economic downturn but a direct consequence of the Iranian regime’s corruption, incompetence, and callous disregard for its people. The betrayal of Iran’s retirees serves as a powerful indictment of a system that has failed its citizens at every level, sacrificing their well-being for its own nefarious agenda.
After 46 years of corrupt rule by the clerical regime, retirees have become disillusioned with any notion that the regime will address their demands and needs. This is evident in the daily protests by retirees of different sectors, who chant slogans against the regime’s corruption and stress that “we will only get our rights in the streets.”