Self-checkout theft is climbing as grocery costs continue to rise. New data shows a sharp increase in shoppers admitting to it, revealing how economic pressure is changing decisions at the register.

Twenty-seven percent of users now admit to purposefully not scanning items, up from 15% just two years ago, according to a new survey from LendingTree released as the holiday shopping season peaks. The jump comes as grocery costs continue to climb and economic pressure on lower-income households grows.

Among those who admitted to stealing, 47% cited “unaffordable essentials” as their primary reason, while 39% said prices felt “unfair or too high.” Those earning less than $50,000 annually now show negative demand signals, according to Morning Consult’s Consumer Health Index — the widest gap between high and low earners on record. The pattern mirrors the economic pressure that has defined much of the year for lower-earning Americans.

Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief consumer finance analyst, notes that this behavior often stems from frustration with the current economic landscape. “People have watched prices rise for years, and often see retailers’ profits continue to rise, too,” Schulz says. “They feel like if they walk out of a store without paying for a loaf of bread or a pint of ice cream that it won’t even amount to a rounding error for that company, but it could help make their life a little easier.”

Just as tighter budgets have pushed lower-income consumers to cut back on spending, the same pressure appears at the self-checkout kiosk. Households watching every dollar are most likely to walk out with an unscanned item.

The survey reveals significant differences across generations: 41% of Millennials and 37% of Gen Z admit to taking an item without scanning it, according to LendingTree data. Baby Boomers, by contrast, have widely adopted self-checkout for the same reasons as everyone else — speed and convenience — but they use the technology differently. The data shows that 77% of Boomer users believe self-checkout makes stealing easier, the highest suspicion rate of any generation, yet they are the least likely to actually do it.

The difference isn’t about technological ability but about trust and economic pressures combined. For older shoppers, the self-checkout kiosk is a system to be monitored and followed. For younger shoppers, specifically those under 45 who are feeling the brunt of economic instability, it has become a system to be gamed. The generation that trusts technology the least is the only one actually using it.

Retailers are responding with technological solutions of their own. The LendingTree report shows that 42% of thieves find it harder to steal now due to AI-assisted monitoring and sensitive weight scales. This creates tension in how shoppers interact with grocery store technology — while automation promises convenience, the same kiosks are now equipped to detect theft. What was designed to speed up checkout has become a system built for surveillance.

Getting caught doesn’t appear to deter the behavior. Among those who’ve intentionally stolen at self-checkout, 46% say they’ve been caught, yet 55% say they think they’ll do it again, according to the LendingTree data. Thirty-one percent don’t feel remorseful about the theft.

That pattern comes as food insecurity continues to climb. The household food insecurity rate jumped from 13.3% to 16% between October and November, according to Purdue University’s Consumer Food Insights Report. Approximately one in six households received free food from a food bank or pantry in the last 30 days. For households already stretched thin, the calculation around taking an unscanned item shifts when the alternative is going hungry or seeking emergency food assistance.

The survey also found a gray area in self-checkout behavior. Thirty-six percent of users have accidentally left with an unscanned item, and 61% of them kept it. When budgets are tight, keeping an accidentally unscanned item doesn’t register as theft. The relationship between shoppers and retailers has become transactional, with the self-checkout lane serving as a space where economic pressure and loss prevention collide.