Persistent poverty in Scotland 2010-2019

This report presents estimates of the proportion of people, children, working-age adults and pensioners living in persistent poverty in Scotland and in the other countries in the UK. The estimates are used to monitor progress in reducing poverty.

Poverty can be measured in a number of different ways, each of which can tell us something different about poverty. One of the most common measures is relative (income) poverty which identifies people living in households with an equivalised income below 60% of the UK median household income. It therefore measures whether those in the lowest income households are keeping pace with the growth of incomes in the economy as a whole.

The latest persistent poverty estimates relate to the period between January 2015 and December 2019, before the first UK-wide lockdown due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Therefore, these statistics do not yet tell us anything about the impact of the pandemic on persistent poverty.

The report is available on the poverty website.