Ocasio-Cortez held a virtual town hall meeting Thursday that was broadcast from her official Facebook account and took questions from her constituents, which included inquiries about the recent spikes in crimes.

“Do we think this has to do with the fact that there’s record unemployment in the United States right now? The fact that people are at a level of economic desperation that we have not seen since the Great Recession?” the New York Democrat said.

“Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren’t paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent and so they go out, and they need to feed their child and they don’t have money so … they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry.”