Following the Ministry of Labor’s rejection of the proposal to increase the minimum wage for workers, the government-linked ILNA news agency reports that even families with two employed members are still living below the poverty line in Iran.
According to the decision of the Labor Council, the minimum wage for single and inexperienced workers is set at 73 million rials (approximately $146), and for workers with two children, it is 85 million rials (approximately $170), only 21 percent higher than last year.
On June 18, ILNA reported that these figures only cover one-third of household expenses.
Last year, the Ministry of Labor announced in a report that one-third of the country’s population is below the poverty line. Recently, the Research Center of the regime’s majlis (Parliament) also reported that 30 percent of the population is below the poverty line.
The 21-percent increase in workers’ wages is announced while the official point-to-point inflation rate in Iran is announced to be 63 percent, and Mohammad Bagheri Banaee, a member of the parliament’s economic commission, also says that the poverty line has reached 300 million rials in Tehran.
ILNA writes that the poverty rate in Tehran is 300 million rials (approximately $600), and in other cities, it is about 240 million rials (approximately $480), with a difference of 20 percent. Therefore, a family with two employed members cannot afford the minimum cost of living.
Recently, a member of the Supreme Labor Council criticized the government regime president Ebrahim Raisi, saying that “tangible inflation” for Iranian workers and their families in the spring of 2023 is between 70 percent to 100 percent.
On June 7, in response to the statements of three labor representatives regarding the government’s promise to review the minimum wage if the inflation rate does not decrease to 27 percent, Soulat Mortazavi, the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, said, “I did not make such a promise.”
His statements come while Ali Khodayi, a member of the Supreme Labor Council, had previously said that in the council’s meeting to determine the minimum wage for workers, the Minister of Labor signed a document stating that if the government’s promises regarding inflation fail, the wage will be adjusted.
Bahram Hassani-nejad, a labor activist and former secretary of the Chador Malu Mining Workers’ Association in Yazd province central Iran, told ILNA news agency that the rent for a small 60-square-meter apartment in central Tehran is not less than 150 million rials per month.
Meanwhile, the latest statistics from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have also reported a significant decline in domestic consumption of dairy and meat in Iran.
Previously, numerous reports in domestic and foreign media have reported on increasing poverty and the inability of Iranians to buy meat, dairy, and many essential food items, as well as housing and basic necessities. Even on May 19 Nasser Nabi-pour, the head of the Union of Egg-Laying Chicken Producers, announced that since the purchasing power for red meat and chicken has decreased, people show more interest in buying eggs, leading to an increase in domestic consumption and a halt to exports.
Mohammad Ali Kamali, a senior advisor to the Iranian Poultry Farmers Union, also said on June 6 that since the “popularization of subsidies” in May 2022, the country’s chicken consumption has dropped by six kilograms per person, or 12 percent.
Some regime officials have also recently referred to the poor living conditions in Iran, including Ali Agha Mohammadi, a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, who said in late May of this year that based on estimates, 19.7 million Iranians are deprived of basic living facilities such as housing, employment, health, food, and clothing.
This is while according to official and international statistics, during the past two years, with consecutive record-breaking inflation and a decline in the value of the national currency, unemployment, and marginal growth in wages compared to inflation, the poverty situation in the country has become worse, and as a result, the absolute poverty statistics of the country and individuals who are deprived of basic living facilities are estimated to be almost twice as much as what Agha Mohammadi has suggested.
