The Statistical Center of Iran has released a new report on the income and expenditures of Iran households, both in urban and rural areas, during the last fiscal year (March 2021-22).
This is the only official report on the budget of Iranians released on a yearly basis.
According to the new data, Iranian households living in urban areas spent 925,017,000 rials ($3,083) in average during the period, 49% more than in the preceding year.
Food and tobacco with 246,537,000 rials ($821) accounted for 27% of total expenditures.
Expenditure on the non-food category stood at 678,480,000 rials ($2,261), accounting for 73% of total spending.
Meat accounted for 21% (the biggest share) of urban households’ total expenditures in the food category.
Housing, fuel and light costs had the lion’s share in the non-food category with 49%.
Urban households earned an average income of 1,124,217,000 rials ($3,747) last year, which shows a 51% rise compared with the previous year.
Other findings of the SCI report about urban households are as follows:
Sources of generating income were “paid-employment jobs” (32.6%), “self-employment jobs in farming or non-agricultural payroll employment” (16.5%) and “miscellaneous sources of income” (50.9%).
The percentage of households using stove decreased from 98.9%% to 98.8% and those having TV from 98.1% to 97.6%.
The percentage of those using vacuum cleaners increased from 91.5% to 92.1% and the that of urban households owning washing machines went up from 87.3% to 88.1% during the period.
The percentage of households using refrigerators and freezers decreased from 71.9% to 70.8%, and those having microwave and halogen ovens dropped from 12.4% to 11.9%.
The percentage of urban households that owned cars last year increased from 53.1% to 53.9% and those using dish washers from 7.6% to 8.3% compared with the year before.
Last year, 95.2% of urban households used natural gas for heating.
Rural Households
The average expenditure of rural households stood at 519,119,000 rials ($1,730) last year, which registers a 52.4% rise compared with the year before.
Food and tobacco costs constituted 40% or 207,034,000 rials ($690) and non-food costs accounted for 60% or 312,085,000 rials ($1,040) of the total rural families’ expenses.
Flour, noodle, grains, and bread accounted for 22% (the biggest share) of the overall rural households’ expenditures in the food and tobacco category.
Housing, fuel and light costs had the lion’s share in the non-food category with 31%.
The average yearly income of rural households was 637,132,000 rials ($2,123), which shows a 51.5% increase compared to the previous year.
Sources of generating income were paid-employment jobs (33.9%), self-employment jobs in farming or non-agricultural payroll employment (31.2%) and miscellaneous sources of income (35%).
Other findings of the SCI report about rural households are as follows:
The percentage of rural households with cars rose from 34.1% in fiscal 2020-21 to 35.9% in fiscal 2021-22, those using refrigerators and freezers increased from 52.7% to 55.2%, vacuum cleaners from 67.5% to 68.9%, and washing machines from 58.1% to 59.8%.
The percentage of households using stoves increased from 98.3% to 98.5, microwave and halogen ovens from 1.6% to 2.1% and dish washers from 0.4% to 0.5%.
Last year, 78.1% of rural households used natural gas for heating and 11.1% used kerosene for heating.
The latest SCI report is based on a survey of 19,618 urban households and 18,370 rural households.
Inflation Above 40%
The changes in households’ budget has to be considered against the backdrop of those in consumer prices.
According to SCI, the average goods and services Consumer Price Index in the 12-month period ending March 20, which marks the final day of 2021-22 fiscal year, increased by 40.2% compared with the corresponding period of the year before.
The consumer inflation for the month under review (Feb. 20-March 20) registered an increase of 34.7% compared with the similar month of the previous Iranian year.
The overall CPI (using the Iranian year to March 2017 as the base year) stood at 401.5 for the month ending March 20, indicating a 1.3% rise compared with the month before.
The SCI put average inflation for urban and rural areas at 39.7% and 42.8%, respectively.
The CPI registered a year-on-year increase of 34.5% for urban areas and 35.8% for rural areas in the month under review.
The overall CPI reached 396.6 for urban households and 429.2 for rural households, indicating month-on-month increases of 1.2% and 1.6%, respectively.
The highest and lowest monthly growth in the index among 12 groups of the basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households in the Iranian month ending March 20 was recorded for “clothing and shoes” with 4.4% and “transportation” that remained unchanged month-on-month.
The highest year-on-year inflation in the month under review was posted for “hotels and restaurants” with 56.7% while the lowest YOY inflation was registered for “communications” with 4%.
The highest and lowest annualized inflation rates were registered for “hotels and restaurants” with 61.6% and “communications” with 6.4%.
With a coefficient of 26.64%, the CPI of “food and beverages” stood at 540.7 in the month ending March 20, indicating a 1.7% increase compared with the previous month. The index registered a year-on-year increase of 40.8%. The CPI of the group increased by 51.9% in the 12-month period ending March 20 compared with last year’s corresponding period.
