Mohammad Reza Farzin, the program's spokesman, told the state news agency Monday that the government is paying 80,000 rials ($8) to each Iranian national for a period of two months to compensate for the increase in bread prices.

Prices for subsidized fuel quadrupled on Sunday as part of a new economic plan to reduce costs.

The government has described the plan as the "biggest surgery" to the nation's economy in half a century.