The government is planning to stop payment of cash subsidies to 6 million high-income Iranians by the end of the current Iranian year (March 19, 2016), deputy minister of cooperatives, labor and social welfare, Abul-Hassan Firouzabadi said on Monday, Tasnim news agency reported.
Earlier on Sunday, Minister of cooperatives, labor and social welfare, Ali Rabiei announced the government's plan to eventually eliminate well-off Iranian households from the list of cash subsidies to compensate for 60 trillion rials ($2.14 billion in official exchange rate) in budget deficit for the current year, adding that 200,000 people have already been eliminated from the list.
As part of the so-called Subsidy Reform Plan, passed by the parliament on January 5, 2010, a sum of 455,000 rials ($13 at official exchange rate) has been paid to almost all Iranians on a monthly basis. The parliament recently lowered the cap for the total amount of cash subsidies in the new Iranian year’s budget bill, compelling the government to exclude high earners from the subsidy list.
