Why do U.S. coins seem to be in short supply?

If the Fed would put Coinstar type machines in Post Offices without charging a fee or taking a cut, I think they would find a lot more people who are willing to get their coins back into circulation.<p>It would have to be cheaper on an ongoing basis than constantly minting coins.<p>Wrapping coins and exchanging them at a bank is just too tedious and time consuming.

My mom took change into her metro area bank last week because they were giving 10% over face value for change. She got an extra $9.<p>Nobody keeps change as an investment, but compared to interest rates the bank was offering on savings accounts, this was an incredible return. I&#x27;m curious if anybody with accounts at other banks tried withdrawing change to deposit in this bank?

Don&#x27;t expect any help from the govt fixing this, it&#x27;s a win&#x2F;win from their perspective.<p>No coins means more businesses forcing credit&#x2F;debit use. More credit&#x2F;debit use means it&#x27;s harder to hide cash transactions and therefore means more tax revenue for the govt. As an added benefit, it creates permanent paper trails that can be utilized when convenient.<p>I go out of my way to pay cash, now just need to make sure I bring enough change.

It&#x27;s my opinion that the web page is a non-answer.<p>It&#x27;s unclear to me from the page how the supply of coins is disrupted by the pandemic. Perhaps it&#x27;s because the mint is shut down, but they don&#x27;t say that.<p>If coinage isn&#x27;t an &#x27;essential&#x27; business, that seems odd.

What does a shortage of coins look like today? Difficulty paying for a parking space or a gumball? Is it just difficulty giving change in a cash transaction? Wouldn&#x27;t stores have access to banks that arent closed to be able to give change? What&#x27;s the role that coins play today that would be noticeable?

Is this a uniquely US issue, and if so, why? Other countries have enacted similar lockdowns, wouldn&#x27;t a coin shortage show up elsewhere given similar circumstances?

My first thought at the headline was that as people head home to isolation, the coins in their pockets stay home with them. Which is probably true.<p>But the article talks about closing businesses, and <i>those</i> coins leaving circulation until those processes work through.

So I went to this store yesterday. The cashier asked me if I wanted to donate the change to the Childrens&#x27; Hospital. By either brilliance or great timing, they started doing this about the time the coin shortage started.

Obviously the federal government should’ve paid the stimulus money in dimes

It&#x27;s odd how the article dances around the true problem: when push comes to shove, there&#x27;s not enough supply to go around.<p>On the one hand, it&#x27;s a pattern that&#x27;s played out over and over again this year. Toilet Paper. Paper Towels. Meat. Canned goods. Flour. Even yeast.<p>On the other hand, the Fed is the sole agency in charge of US currency. It swears up and down that there is plenty of physical currency to satisfy all needs. And it can&#x27;t deliver on the simple promise of supplying coins.<p>Trouble ahead.

For the past 4 weeks I was in North West Florida and it was almost impossible to get coins. I went to 3 grocery stores and they all denied me. Gas stations even had signs warning customers to use exact change. The credit unions in my network wouldn’t give anything out either.<p>Thankfully Loomis dropped a bunch off at my condo’s property management office. Most places told me they were only accepting new coins from the cash delivery companies due to COVID.

Will this hasten the, presumably, eventual move to a 100% digital economy? I’d like to see statistics on how often people use analog money. Is there correlation by certain socio economic classes? I imagine drug dealers are 100% analog while CEOs are 100% digital. Where does everyone in between land?

I think it might be worth it to consider what coins we use nowadays. When the half-penny was abolished, it had more purchasing power than a dime. [1] Could we get rid of at least the penny so there is less waste?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;roomfordebate&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;04&#x2F;bringing-dollars-and-cents-into-this-century&#x2F;please-finally-end-the-penny" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;roomfordebate&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;04&#x2F;bringing-do...</a>

Why are coins more impacted than bills? Shouldn&#x27;t a slowdown in the movement of cash throughout the economy affect both coins and bills roughly equally?

Hopefully this would prompt the U.S. to finally deprecate the penny

My bank told me the reason is the feds are capacity limited on coin decontamination. Bills they just burn and print more, but coins cost too much to re-smelt.

Any bank I&#x27;ve been to won&#x27;t even take coins unless they&#x27;re counted and wrapped. It&#x27;s hard to keep them useful.

A quarter today is worth less than a penny in 1900. Maybe this is a good time to get rid of all coins except maybe the quarter. It is frankly ridiculous to be dealing with pennies, nickels, and dimes, worthless coins.

when is the last time someone used a coin to pay for something that wasn&#x27;t a coin operated machine. Just get rid of them, or make coins that are worth &gt;= $1

Seigniorage for coins is at or near 0. Inflation did this

Personally I see this as a good thing. The less availability means the less usage. Hopefully this can eventually usher in an era of no coins what so ever.

I feel like a smart country would take this opportunity to develop electronic, no-fee payment wallets, not just bring up a coin task force...

Nobody uses them.

The obvious solution is to make everything digital, but that impacts people who aren&#x27;t digital. Never mind the anonymity aspect.<p>The other solution could be to get rid of cents all together.<p>This is what Vietnam has done and it is fantastic not having to deal with small metal change. Although, this created a new problem, they need to lose a few 0&#x27;s. Being a dong millionaire (largest bill is 500k) means you&#x27;ve got about $45 in your pocket. Heh.

There’s a phenomenal amount of double-think going on in this sentence.<p>“While there is an adequate overall amount of coins in the economy, the slowed pace of circulation has reduced available inventories in some areas of the country.”<p>Literally the second clause contradicts the claim of the first.