A local restaurant/bar uses $2 bills and $1 coins for change. Cynically, I believe its to increase tips.
Reading back over the posts from a decade ago regarding replacing the dollar bill with dollars coins, I thought to myself that it’s probably become an increasingly moot issue as we’ve moved toward a cashless society. But Federal Reserve statistics show that the amount of currency in circulation at all denominations has grown every year, with a particular jump in 2020.
I never understood why they didn’t make them noticeably different in size than any of the other coins in circulation, and then discontinue the bills? One Pound and one Euro coins work fantastically in Europe, and there’s no practical reason why we still continue using them.
I’m also pretty convinced that the main problems with the dollar coins were twofold- one, they were hard to distinguish in a pocket from quarters, and two, vending machines didn’t take them, probably because they were gun-shy after the Susan B. Anthony dollar debacle.
Like everyone else has said, the solution is easy; quit printing dollar bills. But I think the transition would be easier if they’d make dollar coins that of a different size, not just a different weight (the dollar coins are a bit more than half again heavier than the quarter, but only 2mm wider)
If it was up to me, I’d go upward- maybe 35mm in diameter and 12 grams in weight. That way, it would be larger than the half dollar, quarter, etc… and there would be no confusion.
As I remember, they were working closely with the vending machine industry and making them the same size as quarters but a different composition made it easier for the industry to adapt.
That didn’t work out so well… I I have seen very few vending machines that actually said they’d take $1 coins over the years, except for governmental ones- transit systems mainly. And typically I only get them in change from the same vending machines.
I suspect that it was a relatively easy retrofit for most machines, but operators likely waited to see if they’d be common before spending the cash to upgrade.
It all comes back to the ubiquitous presence of one dollar bills; without those in service, people would have no choice but to use dollar coins.
They went a bit too far with the Eisenhower dollars. They’re huge. I like the size of the Kennedy half dollar however.
They’re the same size as the silver dollar coins minted earlier in the 20th century. Which also didn’t circulate very much for that reason.
IMO the size of the Susan B. Anthony dollar wasn’t the problem. There are other pairs of US coins that are proportionally even closer, IIRC. The problem is that they cheaped out on the other ways to make it different: Shape, color, and edge. A few years later Canada introduced a gold-colored, 11-sided, smooth-edged dollar coin of the same size, and I’ve never heard of anyone getting confused by it.
Then the Sacagawea dollar was, probably wrongly, designed to be interoperable with the older coin, which meant that it was impossible to guarantee that anyone who ordered the new coin wouldn’t just get a load of Susan B. Anthony dollars. If a retailer did want the new coins (most didn’t), they couldn’t even order them from the bank reliably.
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When my brother’s kids were young, he got a bundle of $2 bills from his bank (IIRC, they had to order it) and that was their Tooth Fairy money.
I was in Ireland a while back and I hated the pockets full of coins. It was nothing to have 15 Euros in change at the end of a day. Maybe its just because I’m used to it, but I’d much rather be handling paper currency.
You have to learn to spend the coins and not just automatically pull out bills. A while back I got tips as part of my income and always had lots of coins from that. I learned to first take out the coins and see how much I could get rid of before pulling out the bills. Cashiers usually liked it when they got more coins.
This. Japan is the same way, with 1000 yen being the smallest bill (~$10).
If I bought something with a £10 note and got seven or eight Pound coins as change, the cashier would apologise and I would be looking to unload them ASAP.
Fortunately, nearly all such transactions are tap-and-go these days.
Also seconding this. So many people seem to be incapable of using coins in a cash transaction. It’s like it doesn’t occur to people that they can SPEND coins except in vast quantities at a coinstar or something. Why not? I’ve always used coins as money, which isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
Is it the wallets? Mine has a coin pocket, but I go out of my way to select a wallet that has one. Most don’t, at least men’s wallets. It seems to be a cultural thing that we should disdain anything less than a dollar as unworthy of our wealthy selves, and chuck it in a drawer or something.
I had a young cousin who was well-off but hardly rich, and he routinely threw out his pocket change. Didn’t think it was worth the trouble of keeping it or accumulating it to eventually take to the bank. D’oh!
My son spent a year living here nearly 30 years ago and he never spent change. When he left, he gave it all to me. I counted around $250. I used it for nearly a year by buying my train tickets from a machine. I do try to spend change, but nearly everything is plastic these days.
I bought a can of pop from a hotel vending machine in Las Vegas and was surprised to get a bunch of American Loonies back as change. I wish I had kept one.
I’ve always had a wallet with a change pocket, and I don’t understand why they’re so unpopular. Who likes having loose change in their pocket instead of in a dedicated place in one’s wallet? It’s not like I need to use it very much any more, but still, I’m never going to get a wallet without one until coins are neither accepted for nor conveyed on purchases.
I think they’re unpopular probably because most men keep their wallet in a back pants pocket, where the bulk of coins would be unwelcome. My right front pocket already has a cell phone, and my left front pocket has car/house keys, so transferring my wallet to one of those pockets wouldn’t work well.