The attempted suicide of a worker dismissed from one of Iran’s petrochemical companies in Mahshahr has exposed the growing divide between the “military men” controlling the country and Iranian civilians, an expert told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Less than a week before Supreme National Security Council head Mohsen Rezaee boasted that the Islamic Republic had made billions of dollars despite sanctions and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian Labour News Agency reported that a worker had attempted suicide outside the Mahshahr Labor Department after losing his job.
On Tuesday, the 35-year-old worker attempted to take his life after the Labor Department failed to respond to his requests, according to ILNA. He was one of 20 employees laid off because of wartime conditions.
In April, Iranian cleric Gholamhossein Mohammadi said the war had resulted in around 1 million direct job losses. Despite the scale of the economic damage, numerous reports indicate that the Islamic Republic’s hardliners have opposed concessions in an agreement with the US that could provide financial relief.
“The IRGC guards are protected. They live in their own semi-economy. I’m not sure how aware they are of the suffering of the people, and even if they are aware, how much they care about it,” Meir Litvak, a professor in the Department of Middle Eastern History and a senior research associate at the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University, told the Post. “This means that when they face a dilemma between allocating resources to economic recovery or military buildup, they prefer military buildup.”
The economic crisis has become increasingly difficult for even traditionally hardline figures to address publicly. Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a member of the Supreme National Security Council involved in negotiations, came under heated criticism on Thursday after speaking at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad about conditions in Iran.
“No matter how much military power we have, if people are hungry and we do not have financial circulation and economic growth, we will not endure,” he said, with Iranian media figures condemning the comments as a sign of weakness.
The pressure on ordinary Iranians is reflected in the rising cost of basic goods. Food inflation rose by 128% in the month of Tir in the Iranian calendar, from June 21 to July 20, compared with the same period last year, according to the Statistical Center of Iran. Beef, lamb and chicken prices were around 149% higher in July than a year earlier, while dairy prices rose by 147%.
Iranian diaspora media frequently reports on Iranian financial struggles
Iran International, an Iranian diaspora media outlet, has frequently reported that Iranians are struggling to afford groceries, medicine and other necessities.
“The blockade on Iran’s oil exports has affected people in several ways. First and foremost is the collapse of the Iranian currency. In 2018, the rial was at around 200,000 rials to the dollar. Now we’re talking about 1.9 million rials to the dollar, which means that many commodities imported into Iran are much more expensive than ever before,” Litvak said. “This also means that inflation is going up.”
The government has pushed back against claims that Iran has entered hyperinflation. Abdolnasser Hemmati, governor of the Central Bank of Iran, denied on Wednesday during a special broadcast that the country had entered hyperinflation, arguing that the monetary crisis remained under control. His remarks came after Farshad Momeni, a professor of economics at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran, told KhabarOnline that Iran had already entered hyperinflation.
Asked why Iranian officials were painting such a vastly different picture of the country’s economic situation, Litvak said simply that ”dictatorships never tell the truth. Dictatorships cannot admit difficulties. If there are difficulties, they are always blamed on outsiders, on enemies, on agents, and they always tell the people that the situation is better.”
Litvak noted that even if annual inflation stood at 60%, well below numerous estimates, Iranians were already suffering economic conditions so severe that some had resorted to extreme measures, including selling their organs, even before the war.
Litvak said Iran’s status as a major oil producer would provide little relief from its gasoline shortage, which would continue to push up prices for commodities transported across the country.
Iran International reported on Sunday that Golestan, Mazandaran and North Khorasan would experience gas cuts lasting between 60 and 90 days. Discussions have also been underway for some time over raising the cost of subsidized gas.
Power and water cuts would make life even more difficult for ordinary Iranians
With power cuts and water shortages adding to the economic pressure, Litvak said “life is very difficult for the ordinary Iranian” and would only become more difficult under the current circumstances.
These financial difficulties have already affected Iranian society, Litvak said, noting that the average age of marriage is rising, while divorce rates are increasing and fertility is falling.
Over 45% of married couples in Tehran divorce within five years of marriage, he said, claiming that financial stress is a major factor behind many of these separations.
Both Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, have pushed for a baby boom in Iran. Alireza Raisi, the Health Ministry’s deputy for public health, warned in May that Iran’s fertility rate had fallen to 1.35 children per woman, well below the global average of 2.2 children per woman in 2024.
“Couples who get married don’t bring children, don’t produce children because again they can’t afford it. So fertility is going down, no doubt,” Litvak said.
Even before years of regional conflict, many social welfare measures aimed at reversing the trend had failed to be implemented. Iranian MP Fatemeh Mohammadbeigi, deputy chair of the parliament’s Health Committee, said in May that Iran had fulfilled just 15% of the commitments outlined in the Family Support and Youthful Population Law, passed in 2021. This was before Tehran was saddled with the enormous cost of reconstruction following multiple wars.
Damage to homes, commercial properties. and essential civilian belongings outside Tehran exceeded 37 trillion toman ($247 million)
Majid Judi, Deputy for Reconstruction and Rural Housing at the Housing Foundation, told the state-run IRNA news agency on Wednesday that damage to homes, commercial properties and essential civilian belongings outside Tehran exceeded 370 trillion rials ($247 million). He said the foundation had opened more than 140,000 damage-assessment files, including around 110,000 concerning homes and commercial properties and 35,000 concerning household belongings and essential possessions.
The Tehran Municipality separately said that the two wars had damaged around 51,000 housing units and more than 10,000 vehicles.
Tehran has provided around 65 trillion rials (approximately $43.5 million), covering an estimated 18% of the damage documented by the Housing Foundation, which excluded damage in Tehran as well as damage to infrastructure and strategic facilities.
With Iranians afraid to return to protests after the January massacres and with limited means to bring about political change, Litvak said it was probable that suicides in Iran would increase as the situation continues to worsen.