A teacher still has a classroom. An office worker still receives a paycheck. A merchant still opens his shop. Yet all three can lose their place in Iran’s middle class without becoming unemployed. Their earnings no longer buy the life their work once supported.

That is the political significance of Iran’s economic crisis. Inflation is undermining the expectation that work, education, and personal responsibility can provide a secure future. For a government already confronting public anger, the collapse of that expectation widens the potential constituency for opposition.