Financial Tribune - Figures released by the Statistical Center of Iran show the spending gap between the richest and the poorest strata widened further in the last Iranian year (March 2018-19).

Households in the top income decile spent 14.45 times as much as those in the bottom decile.

In other words, 10 million high-income individuals in the country spent 14.45 times more than the 10 million low-income people.

Households in the top 20% and top 40% of the income distribution spectrum spent 8.36 and 4.41 times as much as those in the corresponding group of low-income people, respectively.

Notably, these spending gaps have increased compared with the year before (March 2017-18) and constitute the biggest spending inequality registered since the fiscal 2011-12.

SCI data indicate that three trends could be discerned in the comparative study of spending inequalities over the past 18 years since the year ending March 2002.