The United States is not only a country with a contrasting political division. Also economically there is an increasingly pronounced disparity and it is not the recurring richest 1%.
There are something else, more mundane situations. The US gross domestic product has remained stable and is growing, driven by the strength of consumption. Americans continue to spend in restaurants, bars or trips as if there were no tomorrow and this has not stopped despite the strong impact of inflation.
And yet, the lines at food banks do not stop growing. In many grocery stores in New York, you can see photo murals as soon as you enter. These are not tributes to the employee of the month. Those who appear portrayed, in low quality images, are the thieves captured by security cameras who are accused of repeatedly acting in their thefts, of putting into practice that famous saying “it is sad to ask, but it is sadder to steal.”
Many businesses have for some time resorted to hiring security services or have placed employees on the exit route to review receipts, if they have them. But the alarm over this phenomenon, more typical of poor countries than the richest in the world, has multiplied this week.
The Target store chain announced that it is closing nine stores in large cities in four states. In their statement they emphasize that these were organized actions that cause damage to the business and endanger the company’s employees and customers.
One of the businesses that will close its shutters next month is located in Harlem, the Manhattan neighborhood, which has been open since 2010. The other places on the list are two in Seattle (Washington), three in Portland (Oregon) and many others in San Francisco and Oakland (California).
“We know that our establishments play an important role in these communities, but we can only be successful if we work and sell in an environment that is safe for everyone,” the company justified in its statement.
In recent months, Target has emerged as one of the companies that has spoken openly about the problem of theft, a result of organized crime, which takes a good amount of merchandise that it then sells on the black market at more affordable prices for the less fortunate pockets, especially in this post-pandemic era of increasing homelessness and increasing fentanyl plague.
In an August conference with its shareholders, Brian Cornell, its president, lamented that Target continued to face an unacceptable number of thefts. He assured that violence and attacks in robberies had increased so far this year.
Executives from other retailers such as Macy’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods have also warned Wall Street of the effects of this situation on the health of their businesses. In some cases, to compensate, they have chosen to save salaries.
Faced with this situation of victimization, there are also skeptics, who argue that the establishments do not provide enough information to support their complaints and maintain that they exaggerate the claims due to the wave of thefts. This opinion has been reinforced by the statement of a director of the Wallgreens chain. “Maybe we have cried too much about the thefts,” he stressed.
All this coincides with the publication of the annual survey of the National Retail Federation (NRT) on large brands, a document in which it is indicated that products that disappear without being purchased, whether due to internal or external theft, fraud, Damage and inventory errors have cost $112.1 billion in 2022. The figure exceeds $93.9 billion in 2021.
According to the aforementioned survey, 36% of losses due to non-payment for products are a consequence of external theft. Employees are responsible for 29% of the total.
