Mohammad, a teacher from Tehran, no longer plans for a better life. Instead, he and his family are simply trying to survive.
The 38-year-old father of two children said his days begin and end with a persistent sense of fear.
“You go to sleep at night feeling stressed and anxious and wake up in the morning to discover that prices have risen again and the money in your pocket has lost even more of its value,” he said.
He summed up his daily concerns in three questions: What will happen today? Will another war break out? And will he be able to provide for his two children?
His situation is no different from that of many Iranians. Since war broke out with the United States in February, prices have soared and families have cut back on food, schooling and medicine, as U.S. sanctions and a blockade of Iranian ports aim to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and rebuilding its military arsenal, while also curbing what U.S. officials call its destabilizing activities across the Middle East, including backing Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and militias in Iraq.
Hezbollah and the Houthis, as well as many of the Iraqi militias, are designated by the U.S. government as terrorist organizations.
MBN spoke with Iranians through intermediaries, using pseudonyms to protect their identities because of the risks associated with communicating with foreign media outlets.
They described how everyday life has become a constant struggle to afford food, rent and children’s basic needs amid the consequences of war and economic sanctions.
A Salary That Isn’t Enough
Mohammad’s meager budget reveals the widening gap between his income and the cost of living.
He earns the equivalent of between $90 and $100 at the current exchange rate, while his monthly rent is the equivalent of $160 — today — forcing him to work multiple jobs to cover the rest of his expenses.
But the pressure extends beyond financial calculations. It’s affecting his relationship with his children.
At the beginning of every school year, he faces every parent’s list of expenses, including school fees, books, clothing and transportation.
But now his inability to meet his children’s simplest requests is the most painful part of his experience, he said.
“Sometimes your child asks for something very simple, and you have to tell them: Not now, we can’t afford it, maybe later,” he said.
What’s worse, he said, is when a child gets so used to hearing “We don’t have the money” that they stop asking.
The fear of war and airstrikes also takes a psychological toll on children, he said, alongside the sense of deprivation when they see other children’s parents buy them what they want because they can afford it.
Dwindling Savings and Changing Diets
These pressures are not limited to low-income households.
Khadija, 45, a teacher and doctoral student who spoke to MBN through a human rights organization, said the war had completely changed her way of life, down to its simplest details.
She checks the news every few hours to keep up with developments, leaving her in a constant state of anxiety and heightened alertness. She tries to cope by meditating every day.
Her conversations with others now revolve around four issues: war, declining income, rising living costs and fears that the crisis could continue for months or even years.
She owns her home, so she doesn’t have to pay rent, which puts her in a relatively better position than many others. However, she said the skyrocketing inflation has significantly eroded her purchasing power.
She has been forced to change her spending habits, searching for cheaper stores to buy fruit and groceries and giving up small pleasures such as going out for coffee.
The war has depleted a significant portion of her savings because her salary is no longer enough to cover her expenses.
The changes have gone beyond where she shops or how she spends her leisure time. They have also reached the family’s dinner table, forcing them to reduce their consumption of protein-rich foods and dairy products.
She said the monthly cash subsidy from the government offers little meaningful relief.
From Meat to Medicine: Widening Deprivation
Shirin, 40, who runs an Iranian shop, said many people work from morning until evening, yet their incomes no longer cover basic necessities.
The financial crisis extends beyond food and education to healthcare, with rising prices for medicines, medical tests and consultations making treatment increasingly difficult to access.
Some cancer patients now face severe difficulties obtaining the medicines needed for chemotherapy, she said.
Children are forced to work to help their families meet household expenses, she said. And some couples have separated because of the rising costs of living.
A Shrinking Economy and an Uncertain Future
Iran’s economy faces a multidimensional crisis driven by economic sanctions, declining oil revenues, poor resource management and the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.
Although Iranian authorities raised the minimum wage by approximately 60% this year, from roughly 104 million to 166 million rials, the currency’s depreciation has sharply eroded. The new wage, worth about $104 in April, had fallen to roughly $62 by November, based on open-market exchange.
The latest International Monetary Fund data show that Iran’s average consumer price inflation reached 78.6%, its highest level since at least 1980, immediately after the revolution and at the start of the Iran-Iraq War.
The IMF projects that Iran’s gross domestic product will contract by 7.6% in 2026, while unemployment will rise to 9.2% from 7.5% in 2025.
The war has wiped out more than 1 million jobs, according to preliminary estimates from Gholam Hossein Mohammadi, Iran’s deputy minister of labor and social welfare, cited April 19 by the Iranian website Aftab. Counting those hit indirectly, about 2 million people have been affected, he said.
The U.S. Treasury Department also said that economic pressure had paralyzed Iran’s economy and restricted the government’s ability to generate revenue, according to a previous MBN report.
Hope for Change
For Mohammad, the greatest fear is not rising prices but not knowing what tomorrow will bring.
Still, he has not entirely lost hope.
He believes Iranians will not accept these conditions indefinitely, pointing to the protests and uprisings that have taken place across the country in recent years.
“I don’t know when change will come or how it will happen,” he said. “But I believe this situation cannot last forever.”
