I was going to argue with this, but looking into it, it seems the cost of living is only about 50% of the US, so it's really more equivalent to $3/day or so in the US, which would be about $1k/yr. So yeah, I'm a lot less impressed by this now.

It looks like you'd be able to maybe cover basic staple foods in Iran with this income, without anything left for shelter or other necessities. But that said, it means the median income is only about equivalent to $3k/yr US in spending power, which is incredibly depressing, and makes me wonder if I'm doing some math wrong, since surely half the population can't be poor to the point of homelessness. Perhaps the numbers I'm looking at don't factor cost of living in rural vs urban areas, and there is an order of magnitude difference?