In Syria today, nearly everyone seems to be struggling. People of all classes and backgrounds can barely afford food, rent, utilities—the basics of a dignified life. The country is attempting to leave behind half a century of tyranny and 14 years of civil war for a new and freer political order. It is also recovering from an economic collapse so precipitous that it ultimately helped topple the dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2024. As the country has proceeded in its political transition under President Ahmed al-Shara, however, living conditions for most Syrians have only become worse. Costs have soared, and a promised post-Assad economic boom has not materialized. Syria’s new government has offered citizens some symbolic victories, including an end to international isolation, but, for most people, it has not delivered materially. In fact, a number of its policy choices have made their lives even harder.

Of all the problems Syria now faces, including intercommunal violence and the possible fragmentation of the country, the economy is the biggest one. Yet the country’s new leadership has insisted on austerity measures that have made the cost of living even more unbearable for the average Syrian.

Syria is by no means the only country experiencing an affordability crisis. But it is one of the world’s most politically fragile states. If the new government cannot provide for ordinary Syrians, it risks unrest that could derail the country’s post-Assad transition.

Syrian rebels led by the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ousted the Assad government in December 2024. Shara, the group’s leader, eventually assumed the presidency and has since overseen the consolidation of the country’s new institutions and its postwar recovery.

His administration has scored some real wins. After decades of political isolation, Syria has gained the support of regional and global powers, including the United States, and secured the removal of most international economic sanctions. Shara’s government has for the time being kept the country from breaking apart; after defeating Kurdish-led forces in Syria’s northeast earlier this year, it is now working to reintegrate the formerly semiautonomous region. It has in large part reined in revenge attacks and sectarian killings, although pro-government partisans perpetrated two massacres of minority Alawites and Druze last year. And Shara has mostly shielded Syria from the effects of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, even as it has spread elsewhere through the region.

Where the new Syrian government has fallen short is in its management of the economy. Of course, reviving commerce and industry was going to be a formidable challenge for any post-Assad government. Fourteen years of civil war displaced more than half the country’s population and caused the economy to contract by more than 50 percent. The World Bank has estimated that the war caused more than $108 billion in physical damage, largely in and around three economically vital cities, Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs. The World Bank reckons that two-thirds of Syrians now live in poverty, with an income below $3.65 per person per day. According to the UN Development Program, 90 percent of Syrians are living in poverty, and 66 percent in extreme poverty.

By the last several years of Assad’s rule, conditions had grown miserable. In fact, economic collapse contributed to the regime’s implosion in December 2024, as half-starved Syrian soldiers abandoned the front lines in the face of a rebel advance. In these circumstances, even an amply resourced, expert-led government would now struggle to restart the economy. The Shara government is neither of those things.

Of all the problems Syria now faces, the economy is the biggest one.

Syrians, impoverished by economic mismanagement and war, cannot afford even the bare necessities. The cost of living far exceeds the average citizen’s income. Based on the current unofficial exchange rate, World Food Program........

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