The rial continues to sink. In 1979, when Khomeini first came to power, one dollar was worth 70 rials. Now one dollar is worth 2.35 million rials. Fuel prices have just doubled. The official unemployment rate is 9%; the real rate is 33%. The year-on-year inflation rate is 85%. Forty million Iranians — half the population — now live below the poverty line.
A snapshot of the misery — a report on how Iranians in their late teens and early twenties try to avoid destitution by becoming street vendors, has just appeared here: “Iranian Street Vendors are Under Economic Pressure and Police Raids,” IranWire, September 11, 2026:
“The clearance plan for unauthorized sidewalk vendors in the Karimkhan area will be strictly and continuously enforced.” This warning, emblazoned on municipal banners across Karimkhan and Iranshahr streets in central Tehran, signals the city’s latest crackdown. Yet, amidst Iran’s severe inflationary environment, these warnings fail to deter the young men and women forced onto the streets to survive.
Along these bustling corridors, small vendors line the sidewalks. Most are high school students or young university undergraduates enrolled in arts and technical disciplines. To cover basic living costs and high tuition fees, they work in constant fear, aware that municipal enforcement officers could arrive at any moment to confiscate their modest inventory.
Sitting beside a display of handmade jewelry, Narin, a teenage vendor, scrolls through her Instagram page in hopes of securing online orders. “It’s evening and the street is crowded, but most passersby aren’t buying; they are just walking,” she explains, holding up an intricate ring. “I made this by hand from an old metal spoon, priced at just 350,000 tomans. But people can no longer afford even these small items. Every evening, we lay out our goods, fearing a municipal raid and hoping to sell a few handcrafted items to cover daily expenses, university tuition, and semester supplies. But this year, conditions are far worse. Foot traffic is down, people are demoralized, and most young people walking by have no money to spend.”
A short distance away, Arshia, an art student at the University of Tehran, has laid out a collection of personal belongings rather than handicrafts, including old cassette tapes, vintage vinyl records, and used university textbooks. “These textbooks are out of print and very hard to find,” he notes. “I value them and will need them in future semesters, but I urgently need cash today to cover next semester’s tuition.”…
The desperation, of course, is not only among the young. Everywhere in Iran there is destitution, or the threat of it. The only people who are exempt, and who live quite well, are the senior clergy and the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basiji forces. Given that there is no possibility of economic improvement, and things can only get worse, how long will it be until tens of millions of Iranians conquer their fear and return again to the streets, not to hawk a handful of pathetic goods, but to bring down those who have immiserated the country and blighted their lives?
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