By: Jimmy Somerville

I am here asking the question: How likely it is to get robbed in your life in America? What are the odds?

According to the FBI website, FBI: UCR, robbery in America happens on average 150 times per year, per 100,000 of the population (in 2007). So the chance of being robbed in one year is 1 out of 667 so 0.0014%. Over a 4-year period, the chances of being robbed is out of 1 in 167 so 0.00598% (There are also many other variables that go into this. If you live in an area with a higher crime rate, the odds of you getting robbed increase, while if you live in an area with a lower rate of crime, the odds of you getting robbed decrease).

The average American lifespan is 78.5 years, so I rounded up to 80 and did the math. The odds of you being robbed while living 80 years in America (assuming you live  somewhere near the average of the average crime rate in America) is 0.11994%, according to my math. So, basically around a 1/10 chance you get robbed living in the average American town over 80 years.

Honestly, I thought the odds would be a little bit higher, but then again, I don’t know that many people personally, that have gotten robbed. I also wonder how much property needs to be stolen for it to be considered a statistic, and I bet some robberies go undocumented or unheard of. Maybe some people get robbed without even knowing it as well.

There’s a lot of information we don’t know, but that’s probably as accurate as we’re going to be able to get.

All of this is based off of data from 2007. Since 2007, the robbery rate has dropped 33% but
most people alive in America right now we’re alive quite a bit before 2007, as the median age in
America is 38.2 years old, so I figured choosing a statistic from an earlier time would be more
accurate for most people. The crime rate is always shifting so it’s hard to tell, but choosing the
statistics from 2007 made sense to me (it may not though).

Thanks for reading!