Date published: 6 October 2025
This year’s Poverty in Scotland is published in the context of people feeling overlooked and ignored by politicians. It is a context in which the economy is not working and in which low-paid, insecure work is entangled with high costs.
Our report also confirms some of the endemic features of poverty in Scotland. The latest data tells us:
· Poverty is deepening: nearly 1 in 10 people in Scotland are in very deep poverty with incomes below 40% of the median (the standard poverty line is below 60%).
· In-work poverty is increasingly more common: 6 in 10 people in poverty live in a household where someone works and nearly three-quarters of children in poverty do.
· Poverty amongst disabled people remains high: when disability benefits are excluded from the income of households where someone is disabled, the poverty rate for people in a family where someone is in receipt of a disability benefit is 38%. Over half of all children in poverty live in a household where someone is disabled.
· Universal Credit (UC) rates are too low to escape poverty: 42% of people in a family in receipt of a low-income benefit, such as UC, were trapped in poverty.
· Housing costs are causing poverty, particularly for renters: 1 in 10 people in rented accommodation (private or social rents) are pulled into poverty due to their housing costs.