The Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), have put together an all too true depiction of the financial status for an average worker in Iran, so that you can judge if it is fair.

A single mother, let’s call her Fatima, starts her job in a tailors’ workshop at 7 am and works for 13 hours straight before finishing at 8 pm. Compared to millions of other Iranians, she is lucky because she has a “job” that brings in an average of 15 million rials. (The inflation rate is out of control.) But let’s see what happens to her income?

• Rent: 3 million rials
• Mortgages: 6 million rials
• Water, gas, and electricity: 500,000 rials
• Food: 2 million rials
• Loan repayment to the so-called public welfare fund: 3.5 million rials
• Loan repayment for her daughter’s marriage: 3 million rials
• Loan repayment for other goods: 4 million rials

That’s a total of 22 million rials per month, 7 million rials higher than her wages. How does Fatima cope? Well, she has to borrow the 7 million each month, but that is half of her wages, so she will have to borrow again to pay that back.

Her family is not allowed to get sick or have an accident because they can’t afford a doctor, they can’t afford to go out or entertain at home, they can’t buy something new if the old one breaks, and they all have to pray that there are no price increases. But there are always price increases.

Still Fatima is one of the lucky 14 million Iranian workers, because she doesn’t have to protest in front on the Majlis (parliament) or any government building like the thousands who are demanding payment of their overdue salaries or the chance for a job. She hasn’t been jailed for participating in protests.

This only reinforces the reality that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his minions have never lived in poverty, so they will never do anything to help the poor.

The MEK wrote: “They will continue to drain every drop of life out of the people of Iran. Therefore, the solution is the downfall of this regime. This is where the bravery of the Iranian opposition group MEK Resistance Units glitter in the darkness the mullahs have shed on our country, and they will bring down this brutal regime to establish democracy, freedom, and most of all welfare for all people.”