To be fair, the article says that universal credit claimants were given a £20 uplift in their payments during the pandemic, and food bank usage and shoplifting

To be fair, the article says that universal credit claimants were given a £20 uplift in their payments during the pandemic, and food bank usage and shoplifting fell. Seems to me it's hard to visit a food bank when you're not allowed to leave the house, and hard to shoplift when all the shops are shut. And of course nobody was spending money on commuting, workwear, eating out, parties, holidays, haircuts, sports etc so a lot of people had more money during the pandemic (albeit with a far worse quality of life) So it's far from clear that the drop in shoplifting was caused by the £20 uplift.