Fear is no longer poverty alone, but the transition from individual distress to collective anger
The alert given to Joseph Aoun is much more political than a simple report on purchasing power. The President was warned that social degradation had reached a level of danger that could « compete the security and strategic risks » that threaten Lebanon. This formula completely changes the reading of the file. What Baabda must prevent is not only a further decline in living standards. This is the time when the difficulties still faced individually by the families turn into collective anger, converging strikes, paralysis of the administration, and eventually into a challenge to the government and institutions.
This fear appears at a time when power must already handle several simultaneous crises. Israel still occupies Lebanese territory and continues its operations in the south. The army must extend its control while preparing the post-Final. The government is engaged in a delicate political confrontation around the arms monopoly. It negotiates in parallel with the International Monetary Fund and must deal with bank losses. A social explosion would therefore create an internal front at a time when institutions have little political and financial resources to absorb.
The main reason for the risk is the nature of the population now affected. The crisis no longer reaches only unemployed people or traditionally poor groups. The figures show that it affects households where two adults work. A detailed estimate of between $1,403 and $1,486 sets the monthly cost of five basic needs for a family of four in Beirut or its suburbs. School, medical care, medicine, clothing and telecommunications are not even included.
On the other hand, a survey conducted in May 2026 among 2,485 private sector workers, including 1,787 Lebanese, took about $560 as the average monthly income of Lebanese workers still in the sample. Prior to the March conflict, this income was $668. The decrease is 16.2%. Two revenues of $560 give $1,120. There is therefore a shortage of between $283 and $366 a month before even school and health.
It is this structural deficit that Joseph Aoun must look at. A society becomes much more politically unstable when the work itself no longer covers basic needs.
The first trigger: the month can no longer be closed
The social explosion does not necessarily begin with a major manifestation. It begins when thousands of households simultaneously encounter the same cash flow problem: money is finished before the month.
Housing already absorbs a disproportionate share of income. The calculation used in the documents holds $700 for a two-bedroom family apartment in Beirut or its suburbs. Offers are around $500 in Chiyah, $650 to $700 in Sainte-Thérèse and about $600 in some old houses in Tariq el-Jdideh. Others reach $1,000. In Hamra and Ras al-Nabeh, the level can also be close to $1,000, while Ras Beirut or Qoreitem can go up to $1,200 to $1,500.
At $700, rent is already 125 per cent of income of $560. Thus, an employee cannot finance his or her family home on his or her own, even by devoting his or her entire salary to the owner.
Electricity adds about $204 per month to the scenario. Of a monthly consumption of about 451 kilowatt hours, only 128 are assumed to come from public electricity and 323 from the generator. With a generator rate of 48,241 pounds per kilowatt hour in August 2026, the only private part of the consumption approach is 174 dollars, plus the fixed fee and public charges.
Minimum feeding costs still around 194 dollars. This basket is not that of a family that normally consumes. It targets about 2,100 calories daily per person and relies heavily on bread, rice, bulgur, pasta, potatoes and legumes. It does not include red meat, chicken, cheese or fresh fish.
At this point, with the only rent, electricity and a very restrictive supply, the family already reaches about $1,098. Both revenues of $560 are almost exhausted. There is about $22 left before water, transportation, school, doctor and medicine.
This is the first reason for fear in Baabda: households no longer have a cushion to absorb a new shock.
The second trigger: oil can explode several invoices simultaneously
Fragility is aggravated by regional war and energy prices. Oil does not only affect the gas station. In Lebanon, it is transmitted directly to private generators, to the transport of people, to freight, to the cost of goods and therefore to the supply.
The 20-litre 95-octanian gasoline can reached £2.81 million by 18 September. For a car that travels about 1,074 kilometres per month and consumes nine kilometres per litre, gasoline is about $187 per month.
The calculation is particularly prudent: it does not include maintenance, insurance, tires, repairs, parking or loss of value of the vehicle.
The use of fragmented public transport does not necessarily offer an economic solution. For two people working 22 days a month, with 44 trips each, the combined cost of services and minibuses can approach 270 dollars a month.
A further increase in energy therefore produces a multiplier effect. It simultaneously increases the shift to work and electricity of the generator. It then appears in the prices of the goods transported.
This mechanism is one of the reasons why inflation worries despite the relative stability of the pound. After 84.3 per cent in 2020, 154.8 per cent in 2021, 171.2 per cent in 2022 and 221.3 per cent in 2023, price increases had slowed down. But in the first eight months of 2026, it already reached about 17%. A new energy surge would therefore affect households that have never recovered the purchasing power lost in previous years.
The third trigger: civil servants can turn the social crisis into state paralysis
Joseph Aoun’s second fear necessarily concerns the public sector. Public servants’ anger is not just a wage problem. Prolonged mobilization can stop administration, disrupt schools, slow down services and directly affect citizens.
The danger is circular. The worse public services work, the more households have to pay for private solutions. The more they pay for these solutions, the more they demand high wages. The more the State increases remuneration without reform or sustainable revenue, the more it risks aggravating its own imbalances.
The administrative structure itself is described as a « time bomb ». The difficulties relate not only to remuneration but also to staffing, clientelism, political and religious protections and the impossibility of rapidly restructuring the public apparatus.
Joseph Aoun therefore faces a very different equation than that of classical wage bargaining. Allowing one-off increases can interrupt a strike without solving the problem. Refusing increases can push public servants towards wider mobilization. Restructuring the administration takes time and directly affects established political networks.
The danger is that several categories simultaneously understand that they have a greater interest in acting together than in negotiating separately. This is precisely the passage that power wants to avoid.
What power really fears: the convergence of angers
So far, Lebanese social management is largely based on fragmentation. Each group negotiates separately. Drivers discuss gasoline. Officials of their remuneration. Teachers of their allowances. The soldiers of their aides. Pensioners receive their benefits.
The episode of transporters is revealing. In February, the government imposed a levy of £300,000 on the gasoline can. The transport federations then raised the tone and began to evoke a mobilization. A few days later, their representatives met with Nawaf Salam and Finance Minister Yassine Jaber in the presence of the General Confederation of Workers.
The agreement provided for the payment of £12 million per month to regular public drivers using gasoline vehicles. Sectoral mobilisation was thus contained in sectoral compensation.
This method works as long as the categories remain separate. It becomes much less effective if drivers, civil servants, teachers, employees and pensioners begin to think that their problem has a common cause: income no longer covers the cost of living.
This is probably one of the main scenarios behind the term « strategic risk ». A much broader social coalition would be more difficult to absorb through targeted aid. It could also go beyond traditional trade union organizations.
An analysis cited in the documents also recalls the historical domination of political and religious parties over many professional and trade union organizations, including the General Confederation of Workers. As long as these structures control the negotiation, the power has interlocutors. An anger that surpasses them would be much more unpredictable.
A trade union leader fears himself tossing it to the street
A corpus indiscretion is particularly enlightening. A high union official would strongly oppose the training of mobilizations towards street actions which, he said, could serve a logic of chaos and raise the question of the fate of the government.
This information provides an accurate understanding of the type of risk perceived. This is not just a strike for an additional $100 or $200. The fear is that an economic claim will change in nature once on the street and become a political challenge.
The passage can be quick. A protest against wages can turn into a denunciation of taxes, then of banks, then of the entire political class. The memories of 2019 necessarily remain present in the calculations of the leaders, even if the context of 2026 is different.
The situation is now potentially more explosive on one point: some of the individual survival mechanisms have already been used for seven years. Bank deposits have been blocked or eroded. Available savings have decreased. Families have already reduced their consumption and mobilized their solidarity networks.
The next shock therefore affects a population with fewer reserves to absorb.
The fourth trigger: additional taxation on an already deficit population
Another cause for concern is the 2027 budget. The state needs revenue. But an increase in indirect taxes can become the spark that turns an economic difficulty into political anger.
The example of the 300,000 pound levy on the gasoline can is instructive. Taken in isolation, the amount may seem limited. For a professional driver or a household dependent on their vehicle on a daily basis, however, it adds to an already heavy bill.
The problem is not only the amount of each new tax. It is their accumulation on a budget that is already mathematically in deficit.
A couple with $1,120 in income and $1,403 in basic needs did not have $283 in optional expenses to eliminate. The deficit exists before the additional levy.
In this situation, indirect taxation can be seen not as a contribution to the State but as a drain on incompressible expenditure. This is where the economic problem becomes political.
This perception would be even more dangerous if combined with the perception that the losses of the banking system are not evenly distributed. Asking for a few extra dollars on gasoline from deficit households while the country continues to debate tens of billions of dollars in bank losses creates a politically explosive comparison.
The fifth trigger: illness or school can bring down the household that still holds
The calculation of $1,403 to $1,486 is in fact more worrying than it seems because it specifically excludes expenses capable of causing an immediate breakdown.
Health is not understood. However, the proportion of medical bills directly borne by households has increased sharply since the crisis. A family that manages to survive with permanent arbitrations can switch after hospitalization or the appearance of a chronic disease.
Education is also absent. For a family with several children, the school year adds costs that cannot be eliminated without having a direct impact on their future.
The household therefore has virtually no absorption capacity. The slightest individual accident becomes a family financial crisis.
When this phenomenon affects a large number of households, it produces a political effect: citizens cease to believe that additional effort or better individual management will suffice. They are beginning to think that the problem comes from the system itself.
It is precisely the psychological passage that can transform impoverishment into collective anger.
Why Joseph Aoun cannot treat this risk as a simple economic issue
Finally, the Presidency must take into account the security context. A social explosion occurring as the army was mobilized to the south and the state faced the weapons issue would create a particularly dangerous situation.
The army and the security forces should manage demonstrations at the same time as they are being asked to extend State authority. An important political mobilization could also be interpreted through partisan and denominational divisions, which would increase the risk of incidents.
Power also fears recovery. Parties may seek to use real anger to weaken the government or change the balance of power on other issues. But this possibility is not the cause of the explosion. It is what can happen once the explosion begins.
This is why the note given to Joseph Aoun speaks of « preventive » and « preventive » measures. We need to intervene before angers converge, not after.
The proposed economic and social dialogue therefore only makes sense if it quickly produces numerical decisions: what categories to protect, how much to protect it, what bills to reduce and with what resources.
The scenario Baabda wants to prevent
The dreaded scenario can finally be described very concretely.
A new increase in oil increases petrol and generators. Inflation is accelerating. The budget adds taxes to increase revenues. Civil servants demand a correction of their salaries. Carriers protest. Teachers agree with the demands. Trade unions no longer manage to contain each category separately. A common mobilization appears.
At this stage, the claim ceases to be paid only. It covers taxes, banks, utilities and the distribution of losses. Political forces are seeking to take control of the movement or to use it against the government. Institutions must simultaneously manage the south, arms, international negotiations and a street crisis.
It is this scenario that really means the expression that social risk is now competing with security threats.
Statistics show why it is no longer theoretical. One family needs at least $1,403 to $1,486 for five essential expenses. Two revenues of $ 560 are only providing 1,120. The deficit starts at $283 and can well exceed that amount when school, health and other needs are added. Inflation has already risen by around 17% in eight months. Gasoline costs 2.81 million pounds per 20 litres. Electricity can absorb about $204 per month and transport between $187 and $270 per scenario.
Joseph Aoun does not only fear that the Lebanese will become poorer. He fears the moment when categories that stand separately these figures discover that they have the same equation, come down together on the street and turn a crisis of purchasing power into a crisis of power.
