{
  "$schema_version": "1.0",
  "publication": "Umran / عُمران",
  "dataset": "Cost of living",
  "compiled": "2026-07-27",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0 — reuse with attribution to Umran and to the original source listed per figure.",
  "currency_note": "Syria redenominated on 1 January 2026: 100 old Syrian pounds became 1 new pound. Sources published before that date quote old pounds and sources after it quote new pounds. Every figure below is stored in OLD pounds so the series is comparable across the redenomination, with the new-pound value shown alongside where a source published one. Getting this wrong by a factor of 100 is the single easiest mistake to make with Syrian price data.",
  "meb_definition": "The Minimum Expenditure Basket is what WFP costs as the minimum a household of five needs each month to cover food and essential non-food items. It is not a poverty line and it is not an inflation index.",
  "meb_national": {
    "label": "Minimum Expenditure Basket, national average",
    "label_ar": "سلة الإنفاق الأدنى، المتوسط الوطني",
    "unit_syp": "old SYP per month, household of five",
    "unit_usd": "USD at the official rate",
    "series": [
      {
        "month": "2025-12",
        "syp_old": 2200000,
        "usd": 206,
        "verification": "verified",
        "note": "Reported by the World Bank citing WFP. 25% cheaper year-on-year, and roughly three times the official minimum wage at the time.",
        "source_name": "World Bank, Macro Poverty Outlook — Syrian Arab Republic, April 2026",
        "source_url": "https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/65cf93926fdb3ea23b72f277fc249a72-0500042021/related/mpo-syr.pdf"
      },
      {
        "month": "2026-03",
        "syp_old": 2653738,
        "usd": 227,
        "verification": "verified",
        "note": "WFP figure for a family of five, reported by The Syria Report.",
        "source_name": "WFP, via The Syria Report",
        "source_url": "https://syria-report.com/chart-minimum-expenditure-basket-per-governorate-march-2026/"
      }
    ],
    "latest_qualitative": {
      "month": "2026-05",
      "text": "WFP reports the cost of living was broadly stable month-on-month in May 2026, and 19% higher than a year earlier.",
      "text_ar": "يفيد برنامج الأغذية العالمي بأن كلفة المعيشة استقرت إلى حد كبير شهرياً في أيار 2026، وأنها أعلى بنسبة 19٪ عن العام السابق.",
      "verification": "reported",
      "flag": "No absolute SYP figure for May 2026 was retrievable from a public source. We publish the direction and the year-on-year change, not an invented level.",
      "source_name": "WFP Syria Monthly Market Price Bulletin, Issue 137",
      "source_url": "https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/wfp-syria-monthly-market-price-bulletin-may-2026-issue-137"
    }
  },
  "wages": [
    {
      "label": "Public sector minimum wage",
      "label_ar": "الحد الأدنى لأجور القطاع العام",
      "effective": "2026-05-01",
      "syp_new": 12560,
      "syp_old": 1256000,
      "change": "+50%",
      "verification": "reported",
      "note": "Set by presidential decree, effective 1 May 2026. Follows a 400% increase in February 2025 that took the floor from roughly 2,800 to roughly 12,000 new pounds.",
      "source_name": "Xinhua",
      "source_url": "https://english.news.cn/20260320/b7f223fb24874691912bcbd0abd9a775/c.html",
      "secondary_source_url": "https://levant24.com/economy/2026/03/syrian-government-details-wage-increases-and-economic-relief/"
    }
  ],
  "basket_items": [
    {
      "label": "Subsidised bread, one bundle",
      "label_ar": "ربطة الخبز المدعوم",
      "syp_new": 40,
      "syp_old": 4000,
      "usd": 0.3,
      "as_of": "2026-06-20",
      "verification": "reported",
      "note": "Price unchanged through 2026 — but the bundle has shrunk twice. Weight cut from 1,200g to 1,050g on 9 May 2026, then the loaf count cut from ten to eight on 20 June 2026. A flat price line here is not a flat cost of living.",
      "source_name": "Enab Baladi",
      "source_url": "https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2026/05/syrias-economy-ministry-cuts-bread-bundle-weight-keeps-price-fixed/"
    }
  ],
  "context": [
    {
      "label": "Households struggling to meet basic needs",
      "label_ar": "الأسر التي تكافح لتغطية احتياجاتها الأساسية",
      "value": 90,
      "unit": "% (approx.)",
      "verification": "verified",
      "source_name": "World Bank, Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026",
      "source_url": "https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/65cf93926fdb3ea23b72f277fc249a72-0500042021/related/mpo-syr.pdf"
    },
    {
      "label": "Poverty rate at the $3.00/day line, 2025",
      "label_ar": "معدل الفقر عند خط 3.00 دولار يومياً",
      "value": 20.9,
      "unit": "% of population",
      "verification": "verified",
      "source_url": "https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/65cf93926fdb3ea23b72f277fc249a72-0500042021/related/mpo-syr.pdf"
    },
    {
      "label": "Poverty rate at the $4.20/day line, 2025",
      "label_ar": "معدل الفقر عند خط 4.20 دولار يومياً",
      "value": 46.8,
      "unit": "% of population",
      "verification": "verified",
      "source_url": "https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/65cf93926fdb3ea23b72f277fc249a72-0500042021/related/mpo-syr.pdf"
    },
    {
      "label": "WFP food assistance halved; bread subsidy programme halted",
      "label_ar": "خفض مساعدات الأغذية إلى النصف ووقف دعم الخبز",
      "as_of": "2026-05",
      "verification": "reported",
      "note": "Funding shortfall, not a change in need. Removes a buffer that was holding the effective cost of a month down for the households least able to absorb it.",
      "source_name": "Al-Monitor",
      "source_url": "https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2026/05/un-food-agency-halves-syria-food-aid-halts-bread-subsidy-over-funding-shortages"
    }
  ],
  "city_series": {
    "status": "not_published",
    "cities": [
      "Damascus",
      "Aleppo",
      "Homs"
    ],
    "text": "WFP collects the Minimum Expenditure Basket per governorate and The Syria Report charts it monthly, but the per-governorate breakdown sits behind a subscription and WFP's own bulletins publish it only inside monthly PDFs. We have not been able to assemble a free, citable Damascus / Aleppo / Homs series, so this chart is empty rather than estimated.",
    "text_ar": "يجمع برنامج الأغذية العالمي سلة الإنفاق الأدنى على مستوى المحافظات، ويرسمها تقرير سوريا شهرياً، لكن التفصيل بحسب المحافظة خلف اشتراك مدفوع، ولا ينشره البرنامج إلا داخل نشرات شهرية بصيغة PDF. لم نتمكّن من تجميع سلسلة مجانية قابلة للاقتباس لدمشق وحلب وحمص، ولذلك تُترك هذه السلسلة فارغة بدل تقديرها.",
    "what_would_fix_it": "A monthly reading of the three governorate figures from the WFP bulletin, transcribed with the issue number. That is a fifteen-minute job each month and it is on our list.",
    "source_url": "https://syria-report.com/chart-minimum-expenditure-basket-per-governorate-march-2026/"
  },
  "known_gaps": [
    "There is no free, continuous, city-level basket series for Syria. Everything published at governorate level is either paywalled or locked inside monthly PDFs.",
    "The two national MEB observations we can cite are three months apart. Two points is not a trend, and we do not draw one.",
    "The minimum wage figure is May 2026 and the latest citable basket figure is March 2026. Any ratio between them mixes dates and is presented here with that caveat attached, not as a clean monthly indicator.",
    "Prices in local markets diverge sharply from official rates, and the divergence is itself unmeasured in public data.",
    "No national metered series exists for electricity supply hours, so the energy component of a household month cannot be costed."
  ]
}