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Poverty Rate in Iran 'Doubled' in Three Years

November 2, 2021
OstanWire
2 min read
Poverty Rate in Iran 'Doubled' in Three Years

A new report by the Statistical Center of Iran has now put the inflation rate of imported goods at more than 475 percent year-on-year. It comes as one of Iran’s state-owned news agencies, ILNA, declared the official rate of poverty in Iran doubled between 2017 and 2020.

In an interview with ILNA, Farshad Momeni, the head of the Mashhad-based Institute for Islamic Studies in Humanities, said the increase in the number of households below the poverty line was “unprecedented in the last 100 years” – and at the point where it ought to be considered a security issue.

Momeni also noted that households in far-flung, less developed parts of Iran had increased up to five times faster inflation than in cities over the past 10 years. "Our monitoring bodies seem to be paralyzed and may not be seeing the most obvious things,” Momeni said. “The rural CPI [consumer price index] overtaking the urban one is worrying... [it] could undermine the basess of national security, and make development impossible."

Some 25 percent of the Iranian population are considered marginalized, while villages in some provinces are depopulating at a rapid rate due to mass migration to urban centers for work. "During the land reform period [of the 1960s],” Momeni said, “we also saw the migration of the rural work force toward the cities, but their connections to rural areas did not disappear. Now we’re facing the phenomenon of total evacuation.”

Another recent study by the Iranian Chamber of Commerce found that Iranians were consuming less food, kilo for kilo, in the 2010s than they had in the 2000s. Former MP Ahmad Tavakoli has asserted that 60 percent of Iran's population is "below the hypothetical poverty line" and dealing with “significant” hunger.

The Statistical Center’s publications state that in the first six months of the Persian calendar year 1400, which started on March 21, 2021, food prices rose by 30 to 100 percent in different areas. Imported food is now entirely out of reach for many. Some economists in Iran have predicted that if talks to revive the JCPOA fail, food inflation will stand at 60 percent by the end of this year.

Related coverage:

Record-Breaking Inflation Confronts Raisi's New Presidency

Worsening Inflation Casts a Shadow Over Iranian New Year

Iranians Enter a New Century Poorer and Less Hopeful for the Future

Why Inflation is Hitting the Poor in Iran Hardest

Dispatch from Tehran: Soaring Rents Push Iranian Families Into Shared Living

Tehran Supermarkets Shutting Down Over High Prices

Iran's Western Provinces Ranked Most 'Miserable' in the Country

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