Original post by IrnBruManI'm measuring welfare spent in each year from 2006 to 2015 (I lack data for 2016) in terms of how much percent of the overall government expenditure of that year it consisted of (i.e £2 billion in 2006 of an overall expenditure of, say £100 billion, so 2% of overall expenditure). I can't show it in actual values because then the data would be incorrect as the overall expenditure has increased over the years.
In terms of shoplifting, I'm measuring it by how many recorded cases there were in each year.
From looking at the data, each year, apart from in 2013, when welfare decreased, shoplifting increased. And when welfare increased or remained the same, shoplifting decreased. That's a negative correlation is it not but the graph I made is showing a positive one. I think it might have to do with the values.
Here's the data, it's all available to the public anyway so I don't mind sharing it:
2006: shoplifting - 28,247, welfare - 7.4% of total expenditure that year.
2007: shoplifting - 28,750, welfare - 7.3%.
2008: shoplifting - 29,186, welfare - 7%.
2009: shoplifting - 32,048, welfare - 6.7%.
2010: shoplifting - 30,332, welfare - 6.7%.
2011: shoplifting - 29,660, welfare - 6.7%.
2012: shoplifting - 29,758, welfare - 6.3%.
2013: shoplifting - 26,449, welfare - 6.3% (actually decreased but small enough for there to be no percentage change).
2014: shoplifting - 27,693, welfare - 6.1%.
2015: shoplifting - 27,364, welfare - 6.2%.
2016: shoplifting - 28,424, welfare - no data, though doesn't matter.