(Western Journal) A troubling trend in Americans searching for pawn shops online could signal how desperate people have become as inflation and other economic troubles have forced them to find alternate methods for getting their hands on quick cash.
Pawn shops are, of course, not an ideal way to trade goods for cash and are widely known to prey on those who are desperate for groceries, gas or other basics.
But in an economy where prices have risen drastically on everything under President Joe Biden’s watch, people might have nowhere else to turn.
The proof is in the Google search data.
An analysis of searches on the engine for “pawn shop near me” dating back to 2004 shows such inquiries have skyrocketed.
Last month, that search reached a rate surpassed only by July 2019, and in the first week of this month, it climbed past that point.
The top five states where people were most interested in the often predatory businesses were Texas, Nevada, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Searches for the terms “pawn shop open” or “pawn shop near me” also soared in the first week of July.
People in Oklahoma, Texas, Nevada, Alabama and Mississippi were most likely to reach for the terms.
Searches for “jewelry” and the video game retailer “GameStop” also have increased throughout Biden’s presidency. GameStop is notorious for offering people a handful of dollars for video games that originally sold for $60 or more.
While the results of these and other searches are not definitive evidence that economic hardship has fallen on people nationwide, Rick Harrison of the show “Pawn Stars” explained last year that he had seen some troubling trends in his own Las Vegas-based pawn shop.
“Gas prices are killing people, just the price of food has gone,” Harrison told Fox News last August. “[Inflation] has gone nuts, and I really believe lower-income people it affects much worse than it affects upper-income people.”
