Freedom Messenger – The head of the Contract Labor announced the rate of a labor family’s expenses as 900,000 tomans [about 900 dollars]…

Fathollah said that the poverty rate had increased since the Smart Subsidy Plan [in which the government cut subsidies] was carried out.

“Currently, 80 percent of laborers in the country live under the poverty line”, he added.

“Because of the Smart Subsidy Plan, workers face various problems in their livelihoods”, he said.

He said that contract workers received the lowest wages.

“The wages of workers who are hired [for the day] are not stable and if they protest this issue, they are fired”. (ILNA state-run News Agency, Hamshahri state-run daily – Feb. 19, 2012)