Minimum Wage In Iran Only Enough For Nine Days: Official

Amid widespread labor protests in Iran, an official says the monthly minimum wage of less than $200 only suffices for "nine days of a family's life".

Hossein Rasouli, an official from the Workers’ House said Saturday that currently, the minimum monthly wage of workers does not even reach eighty million rials (150 USD).

Although the government mandated wage is called the "minimum" wage but that is what most workers receive.

“The wages of the workers have increased by only 27% this year, but this increase is for those workers who are formally employed and does not include a large part of [temporary or contract] workers,” he underlined.

Earlier, the Coordinating Council of Teachers Associations said to prevent further impoverishment of the lower-class wages must be determined in US dollars.

Real incomes in Iran began to lag behind inflation after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, but salaries were increasing from 2000-2010 when monthly minimum wage hit a high of about $275 in 2010. This coincided with the time when the United Nations Security Council began imposing sanctions to force Tehran to roll back its nuclear program.

A few months into the presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, when inflation was around 40 percent, the High Council of Labor increased the minimum wage by an unprecedented 57 percent in early 2022 after two consecutive years of very high inflation. At the time minimum wage almost equaled $220.

However, the rial lost half of its value in the past 8 months and the minimum wage, without housing allowance, has dropped to around $120 a month.

Rising prices and declining incomes have led to more protests in the previous months with thousands of workers still on strike.