Since the 1979 revolution in Iran, the country’s economy has witnessed a sharp decline. Two main factors play the primary role. One is the Iranian regime’s institutionalized corruption and monopolization of the economy by the regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), and the second is the regime’s massive spending on its nuclear and missile projects.
According to the regime’s media, Iran’s per capita income, based on the real global and regional inflation rate, dropped from ten thousand dollars in 1979 to about seven thousand dollars in 2021, and this year it has fallen even lower. Additionally, the people’s purchasing power has shrunk so dramatically that a family in 1978 could afford 74 kg of meat with its minimum wages but now the same family cannot even afford 20 kg. This shows just how sharply the people’s economic power has decreased.
In between some of the regime’s officials’ absurd claims that the Gini coefficient and the class gap have decreased, the reality of the situation is that this is because the richer people and the middle class of society have become poorer. Many of the regime’s social experts have even stated that the middle class has been completely wiped out.
At the same time, the number of people living below the poverty line in Iran has increased greatly over the past year and the intensity has quadrupled.
In 1979, twenty percent of the population lived below the poverty line, while after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, this increased to about forty percent. According to the inaccurate statistics of the regime, this figure has now reached 52 percent, while other figures have shown that about 80 percent of society is living below the poverty line.
As an example, regarding the per capita meat consumption, in 1978 each Iranian consumed about 16 kg of meat in a year, this shrunk to 12 kg in 1988 and now it is just 6 to 7 kg.
The consumption of dairy products has also decreased in the past few years, as with the gradual increase in the price of dairy products, Iranians have used fewer dairy products.
It should be noted that the average annual consumption of dairy products in the world is more than 150 kg per capita, and the World Food Organization (FAO) suggests that this should be around 300 kg for each person in a year. In Iran, according to the regime’s statistics, this was just 70 kg per capita in the past year and it has now reached 50 kg.
This will most definitely have significant side effects on the growth of the next generation. The impoverishment of the people has also had major social effects. In parallel with the decrease in the income level, the frequency of thefts has increased, and more children are being forced to steal in order to survive.
The remarkable thing about this is that among the increased thefts, the subject of the thefts has also changed. The tendency of thieves to steal valuable and protected goods such as gold and jewelry has decreased, with thieves now focusing on stealing low-priced and unprotected or less protected goods such as mobile phones, electrical canal covers, and cables.
Refuse to collect, especially among children has increased as people are desperate to make what little money they can, while the streets of the metropoles are full of street vendors and cardboard sleepers. Nearly all families have been forced to work at different places to be able to support their family members. In such a situation, forming a family and having children is very risky, so many young people are choosing not to get married.
