MegaZeroX posted:

The two studies I'm aware of that tackle the income of shoplifters are this and this . The former is from over 40,000 face to face interviews conducted from 2001-2002, and a summary of the data:

• Those with family incomes over $122k adjusted to 2023 dollars were slightly more likely to steal than the 61k to 122k range, followed slightly by the 35k to 61k range, and the group making below 35k being the least likely. Its worth noting that the gap between all of these groups isn't that big though, and the biggest gap of these is the over $122k range to the $61k-$122k range
  
• Men were much more likely to shoplift than women
  
• Those with college degrees were the most likely to shop lift, followed by those with a high school degree, with those without a high school degree being the least likely
  
• White people and Native Americans were the most likely to steal, with all other ethnicities being much less likely to
  
• US-born citizens were far far more likely to steal than those born in another country
  
• Those living in cities were more likely to shop lift, but like income, the gap isn't that big
  
• Shoplifting was dramatically higher on the west coast than any other region of the US
  
• Those with public insurance were dramatically less likely to steal than those with private or no insurance (presumably this is just combining the elderly being less likely to steal with

That being said, all of these factors pale in predictive power to measures of impulsiveness and antisocial behavior. The strongest predictive things were other kinds of theft, making money illegally, scamming people for money, pyromania, and destroying property.

The latter study I linked is much more narrow in scope. First, it only looked at those arrested for shoplifting, vs general shopper surveys. Second, the data is all the way from 1981-82, so its not clear how well things hold up. Third, all of the arrest data is only from a single city in the North West, which only had 34 arrests in the time examined. Nevertheless, keeping these limitations in mind, about 51% had family incomes over $51k in 2023 dollars, with about 57% of that 51% had family incomes over $119k.

So, in totality, at least a large percentage, probably a majority, of those shoplifting aren't low-income. And even for those that are low-income, they aren't necessarily stealing out of necessity. I grew up very poor and lived in homeless shelters, and "having any food" was never really a concern. Being unable to purchase video games, having no internet, living in a homeless shelter, sure, these were common. But having food and clothes was always a given. I'm sure there are places in the US where this isn't true, but those that are both poor and shoplifting aren't not necessarily stealing out of necessity.