But it does not say how many have actually done so.
The government announced early this year that it wanted the wealthiest families to voluntarily give up their welfare payments. News circulated over a month ago from people saying they had received a text message asking them to cancel their welfare payments from the office handling the switchover from broad subsidies to welfare payments.
Last week, Mohammad-Reza Farzin, the head of the office, announced that it “has sent text messages to 1.666 million families asking them to waive their right to targeted subsidies.” That would be about 10 percent of the country’s households.
He did not explain how the regime identified those 1.666 million families as the country’s wealthiest. One reason the government decided to pay everyone a uniform welfare payment was because it couldn’t figure out to identify the poorest in order to pay them more and the richest in order to pay them less, which was the original idea.
The Majlis legislated that all families must get something from the program, so the state cannot just strip anyone of their benefits. The government originally wanted to pay graduated payments to the bottom 70 percent and nothing to the top 30 percent of families.
The Ahmadi-nejad Administration raised the per capita monthly payment from 445,000 rials a month last year to 735,000 rials after Now Ruz. At the free market rate that prevailed a year ago, the old payment was worth $42 a month. At this week’s free market rate, the new payment is worth $43.