US to keep targeting Iran's Supreme Leader with sanctions, Bessent says

While the government continues to provide monthly cash subsidies and electronic food vouchers to a large share of the population, many families say these measures no longer come close to covering rapidly rising living costs.

An analysis by economic news website EcoIran comparing official food prices, a minimum nutritional basket and the minimum wage found that the salary of a married worker with one child is now enough to cover little more than the minimum monthly food needs of a three-person household.

The analysis estimated that an individual needed around 78 million rials in June to meet minimum nutritional requirements.

For households relying solely on the minimum wage, it found that almost all monthly income would be consumed by food purchases alone, leaving little for rent, utility bills, transportation, healthcare, education or clothing.

Unrelenting inflation

The squeeze comes as many Iranian families already spend between 50% and 70% of their income on housing costs.

Food prices have continued to climb sharply, with staples including red meat, poultry, dairy products, rice, eggs, cooking oil, fruit and vegetables increasingly out of reach for many households.

According to data cited from the Statistical Center of Iran, annual inflation currently stands at about 66%, while year-on-year inflation has jumped by roughly five percentage points over the past month to exceed 88%.

Food and beverage inflation has climbed above 130%, with some categories recording even sharper increases. Prices of red meat and poultry have risen by nearly 180% compared with a year earlier, according to Iranian market reports, causing demand to fall significantly.

Many Iranians say their personal experience of inflation is significantly worse than official figures suggest.

Economists note that inflation indexes measure a broad basket of goods and services, while lower- and middle-income families spend a much larger share of their income on essentials such as food, rent, transportation and medical care.

Dwindling middle class

Economist Kamran Nadri told Tejarat News that years of sustained inflation have inflicted lasting damage on household finances.

“Economic pressure on low-income groups and the middle class may be tolerable for a short period, but when it persists for years, it leaves broad social and economic consequences,” he said.

“Since 2018, following the United States' withdrawal from the nuclear agreement, Iran has experienced average annual inflation of around 40 to 45 percent,” Nadri said. “During that period, wages did not increase in line with inflation under successive governments, and the purchasing power of the middle class has declined markedly.”

Economists caution that even if Iran reaches an agreement with the United States and the risk of military conflict subsides, inflation is unlikely to fall quickly.

Political economy researcher Kamal Athari told ILNA that even under the most optimistic scenario—including sanctions relief and removal of obstacles such as Iran’s inclusion on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—it would still take years for Iran to restore normal commercial relations with the global economy.

“Under such circumstances, inflation could eventually decline, but the process would not be rapid,” he said.

‘It’s all on Pezeshkian’

Growing concern over living standards has prompted renewed calls for additional government support.

Mohsen Bagheri, a board member of the Tehran Islamic Labour Councils' Coordination Council, told Khabar Online that wages, which were set in early April, should be revised upward in the coming months.

He also argued that the value of electronic food vouchers should increase, saying they have remained unchanged despite rising prices and earlier government promises.

The economic pressure has also become part of the wider battle over Iran’s political direction after the war.

Hardline critics who continue to advocate confrontation with the United States and Israel have blamed President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration for the deteriorating situation.

“Pezeshkian destroyed the country,” one hardline user wrote on X. “He created limitless inflation. He allowed us to be deceived by the enemy three times. Zero achievements, countless losses.”

Others have pushed back, arguing that continued calls for confrontation ignore the country’s worsening economic reality.

“Families are literally being destroyed, education, healthcare, housing, inflation, employment, and every economic indicator point to a bleak future,” one user wrote. “Yet some profiteers have forgotten the suffering of the people and keep calling for more war.”

Iran may be repairing or rebuilding facilities at several nuclear and missile sites, including damage at the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran, CNN reported Friday citing satellite imagery from Vantor.

A CNN visual investigation found repair and reconstruction work at Taleghan 2, a site inside Parchin where experts believe explosive material for nuclear weapons is stored. Images from June 22 and July 7 showed work on several impact holes left by US-Israeli strikes.

Separate imagery from June 21 showed vehicles entering and leaving tunnels at Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected underground nuclear site near Isfahan, while a June 17 memorandum with the United States was in effect.

The US Treasury on Friday sanctioned Iranian tycoon Ali Ansari, citing his links to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards, as part of a broader action targeting Iran’s financial networks.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control added Ansari, seven other individuals and five companies to its sanctions blacklist. The entities include several Iranian exchange houses and companies based in Dubai, Hong Kong and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

The six designated entities include Lavasani and Partners General Partnership Company and Mohammad Darbani and Partners Exchange General Partnership Company in Tehran, and Mohsen Khandan and Partners General Partnership Company, also known as Khandan Exchange, in Shiraz. The other three are CDM Trading Limited in Hong Kong, Naba Alzaki Raw Materials Trading LLC in Dubai and Smart Global Limited in Saint Kitts and Nevis.

OFAC also designated Smart Global Limited, a Saint Kitts-based holding company linked to Ansari, while issuing General License Y to permit the wind-down of transactions involving the firm.

Ansari, who holds Iranian, Cypriot and Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship, was designated under counterterrorism and Iran-related sanctions authorities.

The other seven sanctioned individuals were listed in Iran and linked by OFAC to the three exchange companies.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said a proposed meeting between his international affairs commissioner and Iran’s ambassador to the UN would not go ahead, adding that he had been unaware of the request until contacted by the press.

“That meeting did not take place. It will not take place. And I did not know about it until there was a press inquiry regarding it,” he told reporters.

Mamdani said Commissioner Ana María Archila acknowledged that pursuing the meeting had been an error and that his office was developing a new process for handling meeting requests.

He added that the request had come from outside the International Affairs Office rather than originating within it.

Outlets from different political camps are warning of mounting pressure from inflation, falling purchasing power, unemployment and infrastructure failures, even as they sharply disagree over who is responsible.

Independent and reformist-leaning publications such as Sharq, Etemad and Tose’e Irani have focused on the rising cost of basic goods, reporting that food prices have surged far beyond wage growth.

They point to basic commodities such as bread, poultry and vegetable oil rising between 130% and more than 200%, while wages cover only a fraction of estimated household costs.

Even outlets close to the government, including ILNA and Etemad, have highlighted the growing gap between income and survival, noting that the minimum wage of around 16.6 million tomans covers less than 40% of the estimated 45-million-toman basic subsistence basket for an average family.

Beyond inflation and market instability, Iranian media have also focused on a worsening infrastructure crisis.

Severe rolling summer blackouts have returned, disrupting factories, increasing pressure on businesses and making daily life harder during peak heat.

The search for blame mirrors Tehran’s broader political divisions.

Moderate and reformist outlets such as Sharq, Etemad and Arman Melli emphasize structural failures, isolation and the economic toll of years of confrontation.

They argue that sanctions, conflict, damaged infrastructure and policy failures have intensified pressure on the economy.

Some commentators have warned of an “inflation bomb” and questioned whether decision-makers understand the “accumulation of public dissatisfaction.”

Earlier this week, Jahan Sanat published industrial analyst Alireza Mahdiyeh’s commentary under the headline “The sound of an inflation bomb,” citing Central Bank figures that he said showed the economy facing one of its worst periods in decades.

“Inflation has now reached even the price of bread,” he wrote. “Bread is still available, but more expensive than before. Yet inflation in bread does not give the baker more bread. It only means that what reaches people’s tables is smaller and less than before.”

Moderate outlets have also pointed to domestic policy decisions, including severe internet restrictions and blackouts, arguing they have damaged the digital economy and created widespread “hidden unemployment.”

Hardline dailies Kayhan and Resalat offered a different diagnosis, placing responsibility on the United States and Israel.

They argue that Washington’s declaration that the June interim agreement is “dead,” combined with renewed military pressure, proves that Western economic warfare is driving instability.

These outlets have also accused “economic saboteurs,” domestic speculators and merchants of manipulating currency markets and hoarding essential goods.

The proposed solutions reveal two competing visions for Iran’s future.

Hardliners have called for a “resistance economy,” including tighter controls on markets, action against price gouging and expanded rationing networks.

Moderate economists and commentators writing for outlets such as Donya-ye-Eghtesad argue that internal crackdowns cannot solve deeper structural problems.

They say economic stability depends on reducing tensions, restoring international trade, easing restrictions on businesses and creating conditions for investment and reconstruction.

But optimism remains limited as the damaged diplomatic process between Tehran and Washington offers little immediate relief.

As economist Mehdi Pazouki told reform-leaning Fararu, further escalation could push the country into even more dangerous territory.

“If Israel’s warmongering policies and the hardline approaches of certain actors inside Iran intensify, there is a serious possibility that we will move toward hyperinflation and the dollarization of the economy,” he said.