I am comfortable now, but if I was still poor I'd probably think harder. My version of pausing now usually means I change my mind and don't buy the item. And if I get home and realize I missed something, I just think thats what they get for making me do their work.
I think about this often when I'm at the grocery store buying produce, knowing that some varieties are cheaper than others. My store is regularly out of green onions, but they always seem to have plenty of organic ones. When I search for green onions on the list, it's really up to me to pick the organic ones.
I am having trouble reconciling the demographics of the different generations with the income breakouts...particularly with the low percentage of baby boomers not scanning with the percentage of non-scanners making over $100K....is this entirely driven by the Gen X and Millennials non-scanning percentages?
One possible explanation is that the expected cost of getting caught may feel smaller for high-income shoppers. A small fine or embarrassment is less financially meaningful.
Alternatively, it could just be response bias, in which high-income respondents feel comfortable sharing they've stolen something while low-income shoppers don't.
People always rationalize when they do something unethical. So it’s not surprising the stated reasons were all things that make it seem ok to steal, like the prices being “unfair” or it being a “necessity”. It’s not convincing to me that this reflects the underlying reality of the situation.
That’s actually very close to Becker’s argument. The rational model of crime just assumes they rationalize their behavior and respond to incentives anyway. Whether “prices are unfair” is a justification or a genuine belief matters less than the fact that theft rises when prices rise, even as monitoring increases.
But absolute prices (almost) always rise. Surely it can’t be the prediction that theft always goes up every year. The model would probably predict that items with higher relative price changes have higher theft than those with lower relative price changes, right?
Or are we more talking about prices with respect to wages. But in that case it seems that wages outpaced inflation in 2025 so it’s not a good fit, at least with the high level data.
I am comfortable now, but if I was still poor I'd probably think harder. My version of pausing now usually means I change my mind and don't buy the item. And if I get home and realize I missed something, I just think thats what they get for making me do their work.
I think about this often when I'm at the grocery store buying produce, knowing that some varieties are cheaper than others. My store is regularly out of green onions, but they always seem to have plenty of organic ones. When I search for green onions on the list, it's really up to me to pick the organic ones.
I am having trouble reconciling the demographics of the different generations with the income breakouts...particularly with the low percentage of baby boomers not scanning with the percentage of non-scanners making over $100K....is this entirely driven by the Gen X and Millennials non-scanning percentages?
I wish they shared the underlying response data, but the original article only has charts. You can check out some more of their demographic breakdowns here: https://www.lendingtree.com/debt-consolidation/checkout-theft-survey/
One possible explanation is that the expected cost of getting caught may feel smaller for high-income shoppers. A small fine or embarrassment is less financially meaningful.
Alternatively, it could just be response bias, in which high-income respondents feel comfortable sharing they've stolen something while low-income shoppers don't.
People always rationalize when they do something unethical. So it’s not surprising the stated reasons were all things that make it seem ok to steal, like the prices being “unfair” or it being a “necessity”. It’s not convincing to me that this reflects the underlying reality of the situation.
That’s actually very close to Becker’s argument. The rational model of crime just assumes they rationalize their behavior and respond to incentives anyway. Whether “prices are unfair” is a justification or a genuine belief matters less than the fact that theft rises when prices rise, even as monitoring increases.
But absolute prices (almost) always rise. Surely it can’t be the prediction that theft always goes up every year. The model would probably predict that items with higher relative price changes have higher theft than those with lower relative price changes, right?
Or are we more talking about prices with respect to wages. But in that case it seems that wages outpaced inflation in 2025 so it’s not a good fit, at least with the high level data.
I think the key is that the benefit is relative and marginal, not absolute. A lot of people cited affordability, which combines prices and incomes.