Description:
This indicator measures the proportion of people in Scotland in relative poverty after housing costs for three out of the last four years.
Source of Data:
Persistent poverty estimates are based on data from the Understanding Society Survey. The annual Persistent Poverty in Scotland Official Statistics report on persistent poverty rates in Scotland. Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publish the UK-level Income Dynamics statistics.
Understanding Society is a large scale longitudinal survey that captures information about people's social and economic circumstances, attitudes, behaviours and health. Being longitudinal, the same individuals are interviewed each year allowing identification of those who have been in poverty over a number of years rather than just at a single point in time.
Definitions:
Persistent poverty identifies the number of individuals living in relative poverty for three or more of the last four years.
The income used to determine persistent poverty includes income from earnings, miscellaneous income, private benefit income, investment income, pension income and state support. Income is net of income tax payments, national insurance contributions and council tax.
Equivalisation sums the income of all householders, adjusts it to reflect the composition of the household, and applies the resulting income to all householders. More information is available here.
Income after housing costs is derived by deducting a measure of housing costs derived from mortgage and rents from the above income measure.
Criteria for Change:
- Performance is improving if the indicator decreases for three periods in a row by at least 1 percentage point each period.
- Performance is worsening if the indicator increases for three periods in a row by at least 1 percentage point each period.
- Otherwise, performance is maintaining.
Future issues or reviews:
Note that previously published estimates have been revised as more accurate data has become available. The Understanding Society dataset gets revised routinely when households re-enter the longitudinal sample and data gaps can be filled. This can affect persistent poverty estimates.
Associated target:
One of the statutory child poverty targets is “persistent poverty”. Only the households interviewed with children are used to track progress against this target.