Iran International
Years of high inflation have pushed millions of Iranian households into a struggle over basic expenses, with new estimates showing wages barely cover food costs before rent, healthcare and other necessities are even considered.
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.”
The message had been set in advance by the Friday Prayer Policy Council, which announced that weekly services nationwide would become “Fridays of Blood Vengeance and Revenge” until those blamed for Khamenei’s killing were punished.
The council said revenge was not an emotional response but a “strategic” and religious duty, explicitly naming US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Carrying out retribution against the principal criminals – particularly the criminal Trump and the child-killing Netanyahu – is an unchanging element of divine justice,” its statement said.
It went further, saying every person or group with the ability to act had a duty to “rise for jihad” and carry out the task without delay. The council said banners calling for vengeance for Khamenei would remain beside Friday prayer pulpits until retribution was achieved.
The language was repeated across major cities.
In Mashhad, where Khamenei was buried, Friday prayer leader Ahmad Alamolhoda said retaliation must be seen by the public rather than remain an unfulfilled promise.
“Revenge and blood vengeance for the martyred leader must remain before the eyes of the people, and the people must see it with their own eyes,” he said. “Only then will real revenge have been taken.”
Saeed Jalili, the Supreme Leader’s representative to the Supreme National Security Council, told worshippers in Mashhad that revenge was a national right and a responsibility for officials.
“If you say Iran’s assets must be released, the greatest asset of our nation was its beloved leader,” Jalili said. “Today, the nation’s right is to defend this great asset through revenge, and it is the duty of officials to pursue it.”
Bushehr’s interim Friday prayer leader Yousef Jamali said worshippers would continue chanting for revenge until the United States and Israel were punished.
“We will stand alongside the officials and the armed forces and, God willing, bring the White House down on its occupants,” Jamali said. “Know that the sword of our revenge will fall upon the oppressors.”
In Rasht, cleric Rasoul Falahati linked revenge to the dispute over the US-Iran memorandum and navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
“Negotiating in the middle of a war is meaningless,” he said. “Under the recent understanding, we opened the Strait of Hormuz, but America fulfilled none of its commitments and instead moved to further reinforce its bases.”
He said Muslims and “free nations” around the world were ready to take revenge on Trump and Netanyahu and urged Iran’s armed forces to respond firmly to any further US action.
Tehran Friday prayer leader Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabi Fard also accused Washington of violating the memorandum and rejected any US role in the strategic waterway.
“We explicitly declare that under no circumstances will the United States be allowed to interfere in the affairs of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
In Qom, Alireza Arafi described revenge against those who carried out and ordered Khamenei’s killing as a legal and religious right that would not be forgotten.
Shiraz interim Friday prayer leader Adel Hajipour used almost identical language, saying the destruction of those responsible was a public demand.
In Malayer, Mohammad-Ali Arzandeh said Friday prayers would remain “Fridays of revenge and blood vengeance” until Israel was destroyed and those blamed for regional insecurity were eliminated.
The emerging message is not unity around solving Iran’s deepening economic, security and diplomatic crises, but unity around revenge, resistance and obedience to the new leadership.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps put that message in explicit terms after Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies in Iran and Iraq, describing the processions as a display of loyalty, unity and resistance.
In a statement thanking the public and officials involved in the ceremonies, the IRGC said “blood vengeance” for Khamenei and others killed was a “certain, legitimate and unforgettable demand.”
It said punishment of the “agents, commanders and supporters” of the killing would remain in the memory of the Islamic community and the so-called resistance front until what it called justice was achieved.
Banners and posters threatening Trump, including calls to kill him and references to bounties, were a recurring theme during the week-long funeral processions for Khamenei, turning the language of vengeance into one of the ceremony’s most visible messages.
The IRGC statement did not name Trump, but its language echoed a wider funeral narrative in which the US president was repeatedly cast as a target of vengeance.
It also framed the funeral processions in Najaf and Karbala as proof of the bond between Iran, Iraq and Tehran’s regional network, and said the IRGC and allied forces would continue Khamenei’s path under Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
The message came as hardliners inside Iran were also targeting officials involved in diplomacy with Washington.
The tension has been visible since the announcement of the memorandum with Washington, which hardliners rejected from the outset with slogans such as “We do not accept.” What began as opposition to the agreement soon turned into direct attacks on President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
According to ILNA, the confrontation peaked during Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies, which authorities had sought to present as a symbol of unity and political continuity. Instead, groups in the crowd chanted “Death to the compromiser” and slogans against Pezeshkian, Araghchi and Ghalibaf.
Footage from the ceremonies showed Pezeshkian being addressed with insulting chants. Another video showed people throwing stones toward Araghchi and shouting abuse at him, drawing reactions from political figures and media outlets inside Iran.
ILNA warned that national unity cannot be preserved through insults, vilification and polarization, saying some hardliners had moved beyond political criticism into efforts to deepen internal divides.
Mohammad Mohajeri, a conservative political activist, called the chants against Araghchi and Ghalibaf an “Israeli sedition” and warned that silence by Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and other council members could be read as complicity.
Hesamodin Ashna, a former adviser to Hassan Rouhani, also reacted to the attacks on Araghchi, writing on X: “The same person you are stoning is standing up for you.”
Unity and retaliation
Mohammad-Saleh Jokar, head of parliament’s internal affairs and councils committee, told ILNA the country needed unity “more than ever” and said polarization was what the enemy wanted.
But his definition of unity also centered on retaliation.
“If we are to avenge the blood of the martyrs and the martyred Imam, this will certainly be achieved in the shadow of unity,” Jokar said.
He said Iranians should direct their anger at the United States, adding that “criminal America” must be held accountable and that the nation would not leave alone those who had committed “evil and crime.”
Jokar said the funeral ceremonies had displayed the “strength and power” of the nation and angered the enemy. “We must act in such a way that it dies of this anger,” he said, adding that the “blood of our martyrs” must be avenged.
Call for nuclear weapons
Some hardline lawmakers have pushed the message further. Hossein Samsami, a member of parliament’s economic committee, told Didban Iran that taking revenge for Khamenei’s death required strengthening Iran’s offensive and defensive capabilities and reconsidering the country’s nuclear doctrine.
“A change in our nuclear doctrine is one of the requirements for taking revenge,” he said, implying that Iran should make nuclear weapons.
Samsami also said those responsible for Khamenei’s killing should be treated like Salman Rushdie, referring to Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death.
He accused Washington of using diplomacy and the funeral period to gather intelligence on Iranian officials, saying the ceasefire and funeral ceremonies were used to identify their residences for future assassinations.
“The enemy enters through the door of peace to break your neck,” he said.
These remarks show how the language of revenge is spreading beyond military retaliation into broader demands for a harder ideological, nuclear and security line.
That shift comes as ordinary Iranians face the consequences of renewed confrontation, from economic pressure and insecurity to the risk of wider war.
ILNA warned that whenever politics has moved toward harsh polarization and the elimination of rivals, “the whole society has paid the price.”
For now, however, the loudest official language around unity is not focused on that price. It is focused on revenge, loyalty and the claim that disagreement itself may serve the enemy.
