While confirming the over 20 percent inflation rate, President Hassan Rouhani said that the government is unable to increase the wages of government employees to match the inflation rate.

According to the data, average inflation rate in Iran last year was near 40 percent.

On his trip to Bushehr province, President Rouhani said: “In the next year’s budget which was passed by the parliament, we have increased the wages of employees and workers by 20 percent.”

However, according to the reports, the wage increase for the workers has not been passed yet and according to one MP: “In the last meeting between the employment council, the employers offered a wage increase of 23.5 percent which led to the workers’ representatives to leave the meeting in protest.”

There are almost 5 million and 500 thousand government employees including the retirees and pensioners. There are also around 14 million workers in Iran who are mostly unhappy with their living conditions, and some of their representatives have been incarcerated.

A member of workers fraction of the parliament announced the inflation rate at “at least 46 percent”.

The president also claimed that there are “over 3 million unemployed” in Iran. Based on official statistics, unemployment rate is at 12 percent and half of the unemployed are the youth under 29.