# Just how badly is downtown San Francisco doing?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-badly-is-downtown-san-francisco-doing/984775>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [May 30, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-badly-is-downtown-san-francisco-doing/984775 "2023-05-30T15:40:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 161

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**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-badly-is-downtown-san-francisco-doing/984775/161 "2023-12-09T23:24:27Z")

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So apparently a lot of this concern about rampant shoplifting wasn’t based on accurate information.

> [@](#):
>
> National Retail Federation (NRF) initially said theft results in $45 billion in annual losses for retailers, roughly half of the industry’s total of $94.5 billion in missing merchandise in 2021. But the lobbying group has since retracted the figure, saying the report from the group relied on an inaccurate figure from Ben Dugan, president of the National Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail.
> 
> The statement that half of all missing merchandise, known in the retail industry as “shrink,” was attributable to crime was “a mistaken inference,” the NRF said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. It was **based on a statement Dugan made in 2021 Senate testimony, the group added. It has since amended the report to make clear that Dugan was citing 2016 [statistics](https://cdn.nrf.com/sites/default/files/2018-10/NRF_2016_NRSS_restricted-rev.pdf) representing total retail shrink — not the share attributable to organized theft.**
> 
> Shrink also encompasses losses related to merchandise that isn’t scanned properly, vendor fraud and fraudulent product returns.

(My bold)

> **[Lobbying group overstated how much "organized" shoplifting hurt retailers](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/organized-retail-crime-trade-group-half-of-all-missing-merchandise/)**
>
> The National Retail Federation retracted an earlier estimate of the losses stores suffer at the hands of criminal rings.

So, this one guy testified in front of the senate - and cites statistics from **2016** about **all** improperly taken merchandise, and boom, Bob’s your uncle, and the nation has a shoplifting Epidemic.

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