Poverty and deprivation move from the margins to the mainstream
For many countries, World Food Day and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty serve as reminders of governments’ commitments to ensuring the minimum necessities of life. In contemporary Iran, these occasions do not inspire hope for a better future; rather, they expose the grim reality of 48 years under a ruthless dictatorship—one that has stripped Iranians of their right to self-governance and squandered their wealth to prolong its tyranny.
In Iran, poverty and malnutrition are no longer problems confined to a limited segment of society, such as people living in deprived neighborhoods, the unemployed, workers, or rural communities. As a result of the regime’s destructive policies, teachers and nurses are now living in extreme poverty, while even doctors and engineers struggle to make ends meet with constant anxiety over basic daily expenses.
The soaring costs of food, housing, healthcare, and education have affected a large proportion of the working class, retirees, rural residents, women heads of household, and people holding multiple jobs, pushing much of the middle class into poverty.
In this crisis, women, who suffer from systematic gender discrimination enshrined in law, and children are among the most vulnerable. Children’s physical and mental development is sacrificed to empty dinner tables, while women bear the burden of insecure, poorly paid work alongside the unpaid responsibility of caring for their families.
Official Admissions of Widespread Malnutrition
Evidence of this situation can even be found in official and government-affiliated reports.
On August 3, 2026, the Mehr News Agency, citing the Deputy Minister for Welfare and Economic Affairs at the regime’s Labor Ministry, reported that more than 262,000 children aged five to 59 months were suffering from malnutrition. The Donya-e Eghtesad website also reported on July 9, 2026, that more than 180,000 children under the age of five were malnourished.
These figures represent only those identified through government programs. Millions of children living in deprived urban areas and rural communities, as well as undocumented children and others, are never included in the regime’s screening programs. Yet even these incomplete figures are sufficient to show that child malnutrition is no longer a marginal warning sign.
The expansion of the electronic food voucher[1] program paints a similar picture.
On August 18, 2026, Iran Online reported that the number of people eligible for food vouchers had risen from approximately 72.5 million to 87.5 million. This figure effectively demonstrates that the need for assistance to cover basic food expenses is no longer confined to a poor minority but has become a need affecting virtually the entire population.
Such admissions reveal a widening gap between the incomes of Iranian people and the cost of staying alive. In reality, these measures amount to little more than handouts in rials to the public, financed against a backdrop of massive dollar-denominated theft of the nation’s wealth through various means.
Soaring Prices, Food Deprivation, and the Normalization of Hunger
On September 23, 2026, Arman-e Emrooz reported that Iran ranked 90th out of 167 countries in the food security index.
On September 22, 2026, Tose’e Irani reported that year-on-year inflation for food and beverages had reached 127.5 percent in August. The cost of a schoolchild’s snack accounts for approximately 24 percent of a worker’s monthly income.
On June 5, 2026, the Tabnak website reported on the increasingly empty pockets and dinner tables of Iranian households as the prices of basic commodities surged, citing figures from the regime’s statistics agency. Within a single month, egg prices had risen by 45.2 percent, chicken by 25 percent, solid vegetable oil by 16.7 percent, and liquid cooking oil by 15.5 percent. The same report put year-on-year inflation at 431.3 percent for solid vegetable oil, 342.9 percent for eggs, and 287.4 percent for chicken.
For many households, removing meat, chicken, fruit, and dairy products from their diets has become an everyday reality.
A report published by Fararu on September 14, 2026, drawing on Tose’e Irani, presented distressing accounts from the Mokhtari, Shush, and Darvazeh Ghar neighborhoods. Residents were buying bread on credit, queuing for discarded chicken parts, and witnessing declining dairy sales as shopkeepers could no longer afford to extend credit to customers. These are not signs of a society on the brink of a conventional famine. They are signs of hunger becoming normalized in a country where food is available in the market but remains unaffordable for millions.
On September 10, 2026, the Siyasat-e Rooz newspaper published a report titled “Tehran: Where Even Having a Job No Longer Guarantees Escape from Poverty.” It placed the national poverty line at approximately 32 million tomans and Tehran’s poverty line at 62.5 million tomans, while putting the minimum wage for a married worker at around 24 million tomans.
In labor reports published in 2025 and 2026, the ILNA news agency also highlighted the vast gap between wages and the cost of basic living expenses. The estimated cost of a household subsistence basket stood at 71.3 million tomans in May 2026 and had risen to 90 million tomans by August of the same year.
Under these conditions, having a job no longer means escaping poverty. Many households rely on second jobs, overtime, borrowing, or selling their possessions. Others cut back on food, healthcare, and education simply to make it to the end of the month.
In September 2026, the state-affiliated Siyasat-e Rooz newspaper wrote that the issue was not merely a question of wages but of the purchasing power of millions of households. The minimum wage for workers in 2026 had been raised by 60 percent, yet year-on-year inflation in August was reported at approximately 89 percent, while inflation for food and beverages had exceeded 127 percent.
For a woman heading a household who is unemployed or dependent on informal work, the challenge extends far beyond figures on paper. Every day, she must confront the prices of meat, chicken, rice, dairy products, rent, medicine, transportation, and her children’s education, struggling to meet her family’s most basic needs.
Women and Children: Victims of Poverty
In this crisis, women are both victims of poverty and the hidden pillars of family survival. In a report titled “Women’s Economic Participation Rate Is Just 13.4 Percent,” Farhikhtegan Online reported that the female unemployment rate stood at around 15 percent, nearly twice the rate for men, and that 64 percent of women’s employment in 2025 was concentrated in the services sector.
On August 27, 2026, Eghtesad24 published a report on seasonal women workers in Saqqez and Bukan, showing how women are forced to take on difficult, insecure jobs without adequate support to make up for household income shortfalls. These jobs are followed by a second, unpaid shift at home.
Data from UN Women’s Empowerment and Gender Data Hub for Iran, updated in 2025, also show that women and girls aged 15 and older spend 22.5 percent of their time on unpaid care and domestic work, compared with 4.5 percent for men.
Poverty, therefore, means far more than reduced income for women. It means physical exhaustion, exclusion from stable employment, economic dependence, the burden of caregiving, relentless anxiety about their children’s future, and suffering that remains invisible in official statistics.
For children, poverty today can become deprivation tomorrow. Malnutrition in the early years of life can lead to brain damage, disability, and the perpetuation of intergenerational poverty.
A report published by Hamvatan on September 2, 2026, highlighted the link between financial hardship and education, citing domestic reports that put the number of children out of school at 919,855. When families are forced to choose between rent, bread, medicine, school clothes, and hidden education costs, children lose more than a meal. They lose opportunities for their future as well. Girls are particularly vulnerable because the laws governing Iran define them as dependent on men in virtually every sphere, placing them among those most at risk of being deprived of education.
The Regime’s Share of the Budget and the People’s Dinner Table
As household food supplies continue to shrink, the central question concerns the government’s priorities. Instead of creating jobs and narrowing the gap between incomes and the cost of living, the regime takes refuge in food voucher programs and free food baskets while directing the country’s resources toward missile and nuclear programs, expanding its regional influence, and supporting proxy forces.
Within the budgetary structure, military and security institutions consistently receive a substantial share of public resources, while wages, pensions, food vouchers, education, healthcare, and support for women and children fall further behind inflation. This is where the budget for power expands as the budget for people’s lives contracts. Missiles and security projects advance, while milk, eggs, bread, meat, medicine, and school supplies move further beyond the reach of millions of families.
It is therefore clear that poverty and hunger in Iran today are not natural disasters but the consequences of a series of deliberate political, economic, and budgetary choices. As long as the country’s resources are directed toward displays of power, repression, nuclear and missile programs, and proxy networks rather than the well-being of its people, no food voucher program can restore food security.
The right to food, the right of children to grow and develop, the right of women and men to live with dignity, and the right to freedom from poverty are fundamental rights. In a wealthy country such as Iran, guaranteeing these rights is a basic governmental responsibility and one of the most fundamental conditions of political legitimacy.
No illegitimate government will last forever. The expiration date of the religious dictatorship that traveled from the Middle Ages into the age of communications had already passed when it first came to power. Yet Iran’s courageous women and young people, whose bravery and determination are embodied in the Resistance Units and the uprising’s rebellious forces, are admired by people around the world. They will soon turn this page of history as well.
[1] Electronic food vouchers: A monthly purchasing credit intended to cover part of a household’s essential food needs. Under the current program, one million tomans per person per month is allocated. The credit can be used to purchase items such as rice, cooking oil, chicken, red meat, eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, legumes, pasta, sugar, and, in some phases, fruit and vegetables. At current market prices, for example, a one-million-toman food voucher covers only about 55 eggs. Nothing more.
