Poverty in Scotland 2023

We also update our analysis of very deep poverty in Scotland and highlight the continuing trend, which we identified earlier this year (Cebula and Birt, 2023a), that very deep poverty continues to rise and that nearly half of all people in poverty are in very deep poverty, reiterating the absolute necessity for the UK Government to embrace the Essentials Guarantee that both we and the Trussell Tru. [...] We have written exhaustively on these issues, not least on the crucial call for an Essentials Guarantee in Universal Credit, and the key recommendations in the final part of this report address the government action to assist these families, but this report seeks to examine the reality of those who are able to work and explain the proliferation of in-work poverty. [...] In the health and social work industry the story is slightly different, with the risk of low pay being about the average we see across the economy, but with women, who already dominate the workforce, making up 82% of all low-paid workers in the industry. [...] The workforce is also dominated by men, suggesting that the issues are in the makeup of work and caring roles within families rather than just the terms of employment for people in the industry. [...] The amount of work in a household and in-work poverty rates Clearly the total number of hours worked and the number of people working in a family has a significant impact on the income and poverty risk for that family.