From Financial Information from the Scottish Household Survey 2025 published today, the above and:

Historically, the proportion of households reporting they were managing well financially had been increasing overall, from 41% in 1999 to a high of 56% in 2019. There was a slight dip in the long term increase between 2007 and 2012, which may be explained in part by the economic downturn during that period (Table 1). The most recent figures show lower levels since the pandemic, with 52% of households in 2025 reporting they were managing well financially, similar to 54% in 2024.

The proportion of households that say they are not managing well decreased gradually between 1999 and 2015 (from 15% to 10%), but has remained at 8% or 9% since 2016 till the most recent year. https://www.gov.scot/publications/financial-information-from-the-scottish-household-survey-2025/

As often, there is not a direct UK or England comparison. The nearest is Understanding Society (UK Household Longitudinal Study) which asks a very similar individual-level question:

“How well would you say you yourself are managing financially these days?”) with response options: Living comfortably / Doing alright / Just about getting by / Finding it quite difficult / Finding it very difficult.

Recent waves, covering roughly 2023–24, show approximately 69% living comfortably or doing alright and 8.7% finding it quite or very difficult. https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/variables/finnow/

With minor reservations, I think we can say that after nearly two decades of centre-left government and demonstrably lower levels of poverty combined with universal benefits such as free prescriptions and free HE tuition, along with lower rents and council tax, 91% feel they are coping in Scotland compared with only 69% in the UK. That’s a huge gap of nearly 33%.