Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland 2022-25

This report presents three-year averaged estimates of the proportion of people, children, working-age adults and pensioners in Scotland living in poverty, and other statistics on household income and income inequality. Poverty impacts health, well-being and overall life chances of individuals and these estimates are used to monitor progress in reducing poverty, child poverty and income inequality.

1 Key points

The most recent results for 2022-25 show that:

- Around 17 per cent of Scotland’s population (940,000 people) were living in relative poverty after housing costs. This was 15 per cent (840,000 people) before housing costs.

- Around 18 per cent of people (1 million) were living absolute poverty after housing costs. This was 17 per cent before housing costs (900,000 people).

- Working-age adults and pensioners are less likely to be in poverty compared to children: 13 per cent of pensioners and 18 per cent of working-age adults are in relative poverty after housing costs, compared to 21 per cent of children.

- While the risk of being in poverty is much lower for children where someone in the household is in paid work compared to those in workless households, not all work pays enough to ensure the household income is above the poverty line. Three quarters of children in relative poverty live in a household with someone in paid work.

- Eleven per cent of children were living in combined low income and material deprivation. This measure is additional way of measuring living standards and identifies households who cannot afford basic goods and activities that are seen as necessities in society.

- Nine per cent of pensioners in Scotland were living in material deprivation.

- Median household income before housing costs was £707 per week. Median income has increased slowly but steadily since the recession in 2008/09. Following the same trend, median income after housing costs was £636 per week in 2022-25.