The Shortfall of the Electronic Voucher Against Inflation

The Research Center of the Parliament reports on the shortfall of purchasing power of the electronic voucher compared to inflation. According to this report, although the monthly credit of this scheme has increased to one million tomans and the number of beneficiaries has reached about 86 million, the sharp rise in the prices of essential goods has significantly reduced the purchasing power of this credit. The cost of a basket of 11 items covered by the voucher has increased by about 67% from December 2024 to August 2025, rising from 2 million and 260 thousand tomans to about 3 million and 790 thousand tomans. As a result, the share of the one million toman voucher in the cost of this basket has decreased from 44% to 26%. Investigations by 'Donya-e-Eqtesad' also show that assuming the continuation of the average food inflation of recent months, price growth will reach about 69% by September. It seems that as long as macroeconomic stability is not established, such supportive schemes cannot lead to a sustainable improvement in the living conditions of households. According to regulations, the voucher credit should be adjusted seasonally according to changes in the prices of goods, but this increase has not occurred in Farvardin and Tir 1405. At the same time, the financing of the scheme is also facing ambiguity. The Research Center estimates that continuing the voucher scheme in the next six months will require more than 600 trillion tomans in resources, and the dependence of resources on oil revenues, product sales, currency conversion, and the National Development Fund has increased the risk of financing. Additionally, the claims of stores in August reached about 30 trillion tomans. The Research Center suggests that instead of uniformly increasing the credit for everyone, support should be increased in a targeted and tiered manner. Accordingly, the credit for the lower deciles and households under the coverage of support institutions could increase by up to 60%, while other groups would be supported according to available resources.