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How many Los Angeleans are stealing subway fare?

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Ric Francis/AP/File

(Read caption) In this file photo, a Los Angeles subway user goes over a Metro Red Line map while others gather on the platform and wait for the train in Los Angeles. Kahn argues that Los Angeles' lack of investment in the public transit infrastructure is casing the city to lose money.

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During this time of public sector budget deficits, this "free pass" adds up to a fair bit of redistribution to those who evade. Who chooses to jump the turnstile?   This would be a good study that an economist and sociologist could write together.  I'm guessing that those who evade are more likely to be poor and young but I apologize for my profiling.   In LA, the base fare is $1.5 so if you evade twice a day and work 200 days a year, that's $600 that you have chosen not to give the city of LA as you enjoy its services for free.

For those economists who measure the CPI, I think that this price of transportation should be factored in.  If the poor are more likely to evade, then they face lower transportation prices than people who drive.  There is an old literature in economics studying whether there is less consumption inequality than there is income inequality.  This could happen if the poor face lower prices for goods.   Here is a paper by Cutler and Katz that rejects the claim that consumption inequality is lower than income inequality.