Iran’s misery index settled at 45.4 in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year (Dec. 22, 2019-March 19) from 50.6 in the third quarter (Sept. 23-Dec. 21, 2019), the Statistical Center of Iran reported.
The index stood at 48.4 and 53.1 in Q1 (March 21-June 21, 2019) and Q2 (June 22-Sept. 22, 2019) of the last Iranian year respectively.
The country’s misery index stood at 38.9 in the year ending March 2019.
The misery index, created by economist Arthur Okun, helps determine how the average citizen is doing economically and it is calculated by adding the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to the annual inflation rate. The higher the combined score, the worse the economic situation.
Iran’s unemployment rate, the proportion of jobless population of ages 15 and above, stood at 10.6% in the fourth quarter of last Iranian year, indicating a 1.7% decline compared with the same period of the year before.
According to the Statistical Center of Iran, a total of 2,788,587 Iranians were unemployed in Q4. Men’s unemployment stood at 9.2% while the rate for women hovered around 17.2%. Over 1.97 million men and 812,902 women of ages 15 and above were jobless in Q4.
The unemployment rate was 11.4% for urban areas (2.23 million people) and 8.5% for rural areas (554,330 people).
The average goods and services Consumer Price Index in the 12-month period ending March 19, which marks the final day of the fiscal 2019-20, increased by 34.8% compared with the corresponding period of the year before, according to SCI.
The consumer inflation for the month under review (Feb. 20-March 19) registered a year-on-year increase of 22% compared with the similar month of previous year.
The overall CPI (using the Iranian year to March 2017 as the base year) stood at 200.5 last month, indicating a 1.5% rise compared with the month before.
CPI registered a year-on-year increase of 22.2% for urban areas and 21.1% for rural areas in the month under review compared with the similar month of last year.
The overall CPI reached 199.5 for urban households and 206.2 for rural households, indicating a month-on-month increase of 1.4% and 1.8% for urban and rural areas, respectively.
SCI put urban and rural 12-month inflation for the month under review at 34.4% and 37.3% respectively.
