As economic and financial pressure on the Iranian regime intensifies, Iranian regime president Masoud Pezeshkian has once again laid the groundwork for higher fuel prices by highlighting the wide gap between gasoline purchase and sale prices. Meanwhile, the suspension of the UAE’s financial and commercial transactions with Iran has heightened concerns that the Iranian regime’s assets and Iranian banks’ funds in the country could be blocked.

Speaking on Friday, August 21, Pezeshkian said about gasoline prices: “Who said the government should buy gasoline for 1.3 million rials and then sell it for 15,000 rials?” He claimed that continuing this situation would reduce the government’s ability to cover costs such as food voucher programs, payments owed to wheat farmers, insurance, and the livelihoods of workers, retirees, and government employees.

Iran’s Regime Plans Fuel Rationing, Higher Gasoline Prices Within Next 15 Days

These remarks come as Pezeshkian’s government is pursuing the so-called “fourth gasoline quota” plan at market prices, a proposal that has faced opposition even within the regime. On August 17, Iranian regime parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said raising gasoline prices was not “a calculated measure.”

At the same time, Yaser Mirzaei, deputy head of the Energy Optimization Organization, reported restrictions on gasoline imports and significant withdrawals from fuel reserves this year, warning about the continuation of this trend. As a result, the gasoline shortage crisis has once again become a tool for justifying price increases and shifting the costs of the regime’s economic mismanagement onto the public.

The UAE’s financial pressure on the Iranian regime

Ali Shariati, a member of the regime’s Chamber of Commerce, warned about the consequences of the UAE’s recent decision to halt commercial and financial transactions with Iran. He said that if Iranian assets, intermediary companies, or Iranian banks in the UAE were blocked, the amount involved “could be a very large figure.”

The UAE announced last Wednesday that it was suspending trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran until further notice. The decision came after Abu Dhabi accused the Iranian regime of firing two ballistic missiles toward passing ships, an allegation the Iranian regime has denied.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Dubai banks have long held substantial Iran-related deposits, and that a significant portion of those funds has effectively been unable to be transferred because of U.S. sanctions.

So far, UAE officials have not announced any order to seize or freeze the assets of Iran, Iranian banks, or Iranian citizens. Nevertheless, the convergence of the fuel crisis, the possibility of higher gasoline prices, trade restrictions, and the risk of blocked financial resources presents a more concentrated picture of the economic pressure facing the Iranian regime. Alongside Washington’s plan to intensify sanctions, these pressures further expose the costs of the regime’s economic crisis and regional policies.

While the Iranian regime’s Food and Drug Administration claims that the recent currency policy changes do not mean the complete elimination of subsidized exchange rates for medicines or the beginning of a new wave of price hikes, reports indicate a sharp increase in the prices of some medications in Iran.

According to a report published by Baamdadno, citing a notice from a pharmaceutical company, the prices of 82 of the company’s products have increased by an average of about 120%. The largest increases were for Donepezil tablets, at about 543%, and Clarithromycin, at about 308%.

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The state-run website Asr Iran also wrote: “According to Tasnim News Agency, a pharmaceutical company announced in a notice that the prices of 82 of its pharmaceutical products have increased, raising the average price of the affected items from about 1.8 million rials (approximately one dollar) to 3.9 million rials.”

In response, Mohammad Hashemi, spokesperson for the Iranian regime’s Food and Drug Administration, claimed that the recent currency changes affect only certain pharmaceutical intermediates and precursor materials and should not be interpreted as the removal of subsidized exchange rates across the entire pharmaceutical supply chain.

He also said that foreign currency for raw materials and precursor substances used by the pharmaceutical industry has been allocated at the same level as last year and that the Health Ministry’s policy is to prevent financial pressure from being passed on to patients.

The debate over the gradual elimination of subsidized exchange rates for medicines has continued for months. In March 2026, the Food and Drug Administration announced that, due to limited foreign currency resources, subsidized exchange rates would be removed for certain active pharmaceutical ingredients and precursors used in over-the-counter medicines, low-cost non-chronic medications, and some licensed drugs, although vital and essential medicines would continue to qualify for the subsidy.

Following these changes, numerous reports of price increases for some medications have been published, and concerns have grown about rising treatment costs and more difficult access to medicines for patients.

The state-run website Khabar Online wrote about the rise in drug prices: “Drug prices increased this year in two stages, first on April 5 and then in early June. About two-thirds of all medicines were repriced during these two stages. Mehdi Pirsalehi, head of the Food and Drug Administration, said a few days ago at a press conference that ‘this increase is not solely the result of manufacturers’ decisions. The prices of raw materials, auxiliary materials, packaging, petrochemical products, aluminum, and transportation costs have also affected this sector.'”

The head of the Iranian regime’s Food and Drug Administration added: “In just one example, we have seen transportation costs increase. The cost of shipping a container from countries such as China and India, which used to be about $2,000 to $3,000, has in some cases reached $30,000, and it is paid using the free-market exchange rate. Rising global energy costs and higher raw material prices in countries such as India and China have also increased production costs.”

This regime official then combines these figures and claims that not all of the costs will be paid by patients and that “we are pursuing a collective system.” However, in this official’s so-called collective system, there is no mention of the government. Instead, it is once again the people, pharmaceutical companies, and ultimately insurance providers who are expected to bear the costs—something that never happens, with the result being drug price increases of 300% to 500%.

The August 18 editions of the Tosee Irani and Ham-Mihan newspapers carried the headline: “The monthly livelihood basket has reached 900 million rials,” while “workers’ wages for the month of Tir were not enough to cover even 10 days of the month.”

Economic Crisis: The Real Face of a Regime That Portrays Itself as Powerful

Every day, society demands the right to live, and the ruling establishment cannot respond, even if it wanted to. This situation means the crisis between the regime and society has crossed a breaking point and moved beyond an intensely contradictory stage. It clearly indicates that there is no path back for the regime to repair this rapidly widening gap. Class inequality has reached its peak, and its trajectory continues to rise. How can the enormous gap between the “250 million-rial monthly wage (approximately $133) of minimum-wage workers” and the “900 million-rial livelihood basket (approximately $479)” be bridged?

When, from February to mid-June, “the cost of living rises by 211%, increasing by 476 million rials (approximately $253),” it means the regime and society are entrenching themselves for a class struggle.

In a society where “housing, quality education, and proper healthcare have long been out of reach, and even food has become inaccessible,” what description of governance remains, other than that of a thief breaking into a home?

When the basic necessities of life become inaccessible to a large segment of the population, the issue is no longer merely an economic or livelihood crisis. Livelihood reaches a point where human dignity, the future of children, and the possibility of continuing life itself are taken hostage. Under these conditions, it is natural for protests against rising prices and poverty to go beyond an economic demand and become a question about the very nature of governance.

The natural question arising from this trend is where this rapidly escalating cycle—one in which “workers struggle desperately in the whirlpool of astronomical living costs”—will ultimately lead the confrontation between the regime and society.

The answer cannot be found in economic tables, statistics, or the government’s piecemeal and reactive wage decisions. When the gap between living costs and income reaches the greatest dimensions of class inequality, the issue becomes a structural crisis within the regime itself—a crisis that produces new branches every day and expands to encompass every segment of society. The issue has now become existential for both the regime and the people: the regime seeks to use the people as a shield for its own survival, while the people seek to remove the regime from their natural lives and their political and social existence.

Following increased economic pressure on the Iranian regime and a naval blockade, its leaders fear that US President Donald Trump’s threat of further economic punishment could deepen hardship, reignite unrest, and further erode the regime’s legitimacy.

Despite the Iranian regime leaders’ warmongering after nearly six months of war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global oil supplies, they are facing growing pressure inside the country that could lead to nationwide unrest. The protests taking place across Iran over economic conditions are examples of this pressure.

On Friday, August 14, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would impose measures against Tehran by early the following week that had never been seen before. The remarks followed additional economic sanctions previously imposed on the Iranian regime. Washington did not specify what the new measures would include.

Iran entered the war with high inflation, a weakening currency, energy shortages, sanctions, and deep structural weaknesses, and it now has to contend with damaged infrastructure, trade disruptions, lost production, and reconstruction costs.

According to Iran’s Statistical Center, the country’s annual inflation rate reached 66% in July, while consumer prices were 87.9% higher than a year earlier. Food inflation reached 128% compared with the previous year.

For the Iranian regime, the greater threat may not be the economic pain itself, but the risk that worsening hardship will reignite public unrest. Poor living conditions, dictatorship, and political pressure on the people led to widespread protests across Iran in January, and the Iranian regime responded with an unprecedented crackdown. That repression resulted in the deaths of several thousand people in Iran. The causes behind the January protests, as well as all previous protests, not only remain but have intensified.

The appointment of Hossein Taeb, a key architect of past crackdowns, as the head of Iran’s Basij last week is one of the clearest signs of growing concern among Iranian regime officials about the reemergence of unrest.

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The Basij is a paramilitary force affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and both have been used by the ruling clerics to suppress protests.

In recent months, the Iranian regime has responded to fears of renewed unrest with executions, arrests, summonses, and lengthy prison sentences against journalists, lawyers, activists, human rights defenders, and students.

These measures deepen the divide between the Iranian regime and the general public, who have grown increasingly frustrated by mounting economic pressure.

Families are reducing their consumption of meat and other essential goods and choosing cheaper alternatives.

According to the Statistical Center, rents in March were 31% higher than the previous year, while state media reported that housing prices in Tehran were nearly 50% higher than a year earlier.

Iran’s minimum wage increased by about 60% this year, but the continued decline in the value of the rial has reduced purchasing power, with the dollar value of the minimum wage falling from about $105 in late March to $86.

The Iranian regime has tried to move essential goods through alternative routes, including land corridors and the Caspian Sea, but those alternatives have also come under pressure.

Iranian regime president Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged the pressure last week, saying, “Our problems have multiplied several times, while our income has also declined.”

He said goods that once arrived by ship now take longer routes to reach Iran, driving up prices, and added that Iran is selling less oil and collecting less tax revenue from damaged or bankrupt businesses. Reza Sepahvand, a member of the regime’s Majlis (parliament), told the state-run ILNA news agency on Saturday, August 15, that the blockade had also effectively cut off Iran’s gasoline imports. He added that Iran’s daily gasoline production had reached about 130 million liters, while daily consumption stood at 137 million liters.

Iran’s Regime Plans Fuel Rationing, Higher Gasoline Prices Within Next 15 Days

The latest figures from the Iranian regime’s Statistical Center show that year-over-year inflation for food and beverages reached 128.1% in July and August, a figure significantly higher than the country’s overall inflation rate of 87.9%. As a result, the cost of buying a fixed basket of food has more than doubled compared with the same period last year, leading to a substantial decline in per capita consumption of essential goods. According to reports from food producers’ trade associations, consumption of red meat, poultry, and eggs has fallen by 25% to 50%, while per capita dairy consumption has dropped dramatically from about 100 kilograms at the beginning of the 2010s to 40 kilograms today.

However, according to the Iranian regime’s Statistical Center, year-over-year food inflation had already reached a three-digit level of 106.7% in February, before the war.

Farzad Talakesh, secretary-general of the Iran Poultry Federation, said in May this year that the reason chicken had not become scarce in the market was declining consumption. He added that per capita chicken consumption had fallen by 25% to 30%, and he told the state-run Trade News that chick placement had declined by the same amount. He warned that if economic conditions improved and chicken consumption increased, current production would not be sufficient, disrupting supply and demand and driving prices higher.

Ali Ehsan Zafari, CEO of the Dairy Cooperatives Union, also told the state-run Young Journalists Club in August: “At present, average per capita dairy consumption has fallen below 40 kilograms, whereas in 2010 it exceeded 100 kilograms. According to the statistics, we had 1,200 active dairy production units in the country in 2010, but that number has now fallen to fewer than 250.”

According to a report provided by the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Agriculture to journalists, the war has caused the baseline prices of essential commodities in global markets to rise by 10% to 20%. International shipping costs have also increased by 120% to 200%, contributing to higher food prices.

According to the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Agriculture, the destruction of steel plants, petrochemical facilities, and upstream packaging industries has increased food packaging costs by 150% to 300%.

The Iranian regime has chosen the path of confrontation with both the international community and the people of Iran. By increasing repression and executions, it seeks to suppress the protest potential of Iranian society for a period while resisting U.S. pressure by any means possible.

In any case, if the Iranian regime yields to the people’s demands, it will collapse in the shortest possible time, forcing it to take the opposite path. It may appear that the Iranian regime has managed to withstand global and regional powers, suggesting this is a sign of strength and leading some to conclude that negotiations with the regime and acceptance of the situation are necessary.

However, experience has shown that the Iranian regime is struggling for survival, and its not being overthrown by the United States should not be seen as a sign of strength. The answer is that the path to overthrowing the mullahs does not lie through foreign war. Although the war has weakened the Iranian regime’s military capabilities, it will not lead to its overthrow, even if the attacks become many times more deadly.

If, and only if, the world and the region seek growth, prosperity, and stability, and if the Iranian regime stands in the way of those goals, then the only solution is the people of Iran and support for an inclusive democracy in Iran.

Workers’ cost of living has come under pressure from inflation and low wages. July inflation data point to intensifying financial pressure on working-class households. Prices of essential goods have risen rapidly. Among these, food has placed the greatest strain on household budgets. Housing, healthcare, and education have also become more difficult to afford for many wage-earning families.

According to official data from the Statistical Center of Iran, the Iranian regime’s official statistics agency, point-to-point food inflation reached 128.1% in July. This means the price of the specified food basket has become 2.8 times higher than it was in July last year. The prices of at least eight food items have increased by more than 100% over the past year. These figures reflect only average price increases. The food basket used in the official calculations is itself very limited and minimal.

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The cost of living basket and the deep gap between income and expenses

Working-class households are mainly concentrated in the fourth and fifth income deciles. According to the calculations presented, food accounts for 38.05% of living expenses in these deciles. Faramarz Tofighi, a labor activist, calculated the cost of the food basket for an average 3.3-person family based on official data. He also used the Nutrition Institute’s food basket in his calculations. According to these estimates, the cost of a working-class household’s living basket reached about 900 million rials (approximately $479) in July. This amount creates an enormous gap with workers’ monthly income. Meanwhile, a worker’s minimum monthly income is about $133. This figure represents the total official earnings of a worker with one child and one year of work experience.

The cost of living basket set by Iran’s regime’s Supreme Labor Council in February last year stood at 429 million rials. Within four months, it had risen to about 900 million rials. As a result, the cost of living basket increased by 211.14% during this period. The increase in living costs amounted to about 476 million rials. This surge occurred within just four months.

Inflation is outpacing wages

According to calculations presented by Faramarz Tofighi, the monthly wage of a married worker with one child and one year of work experience, including all benefits, amounts to 249 million rials. At the beginning of the year, this wage covered only 58.24% of the cost of the living basket. At that time, the worker’s monthly income was enough to cover about 17.47 days of minimum living expenses. However, by the end of July, the situation had changed noticeably.

The wage’s purchasing power has fallen to 27.58%. This income now covers only 8.27 days of living expenses.

Food has become a class-divided commodity

Meat, chicken, eggs, legumes, and rice are among the staple foods that are gradually disappearing from people’s living baskets, especially those of workers. Bread, which has always been a basic food for low-income households, has also not been spared from inflationary pressure.

For households with fixed incomes, rising prices for these goods mean the gradual elimination of essential items. Declining food quality is also one consequence of this situation. This issue is particularly significant for retirees. A large portion of retirees live on fixed incomes and have no way to offset inflation through higher earnings.

The cost of living basket: A gap that widens every month

A comparison of income and expenses shows that the gap between wages and the cost of living basket has deepened in a short period. At the beginning of the year, on March 22, a wage of 249 million rials (about $133 at the current exchange rate) could cover 58.24% of minimum living expenses. Four months later, that coverage had dropped to 27.58%.

At the same time, the cost of the living basket has risen from 429 million rials to about 900 million rials. The gap between income and expenses has not only grown but has expanded at a significant pace. The calculations indicate that workers need an income close to 900 million rials to maintain a minimum standard of living. Yet the wages of a large share of workers do not even reach half of that amount.

Under such conditions, a slight decline in inflation alone cannot compensate for the pressure imposed on wage-earning households. Lower inflation does not mean lower prices. It only means that prices are rising more slowly.

When a monthly wage is enough to cover only 8.27 days of minimum living expenses, the issue goes beyond ordinary economic pressure. These figures point to a severe erosion of workers’ purchasing power and worsening economic inequality in Iran.