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

federalreserve.gov

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

#211

Post by dzhiurgis »

jkepler wrote: post #195
dzhiurgis wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t you use self checkout? Also who the hell uses cash.

> Also who the hell uses cash. Who uses cash? The unbanked and underbanked, about 55 million adults in the USA, approximately 22% of the US households, according to the US Federal Reserve. In the USA that often includes folks like the homeless, or people from drastically lower socioeconomic classes, as well as undocumented workers, those who don't trust the banking system, and those without government IDs. [1] This a…

Sounds like these shithole countries need to solve something else first.

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

#212

Post by Dylan16807 »

bluGill wrote: post #169
dotancohen wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lb is a unit of force, not volume.

On earth they readily convert. The size (historically) was determined by the volume needed to get that much mass. At one time payment was measured in weight as you could never trust the other person (or the person who fooled them) to not mix some less valuable metal on with their coins. Those days are mostly gone but the history is weight (which on earth is the same as mass) is important not volume.

They readily convert with half a percent of slack between different locations. So be careful calibrating your scale.

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

#213

Post by treeman79 »

partiallypro wrote: post #55
GeekyBear wrote: post #46

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. It would have to be cheaper on an ongoing basis than constantly minting coins. Wrapping coins and exchanging them at a bank is just too tedious and time consuming.

A large number of banks have coin machines inside that will take unrolled coins and deposit them into your account for free. Coinstar unfortunately largely targets people that don't have bank accounts.

This is interesting. I have less then fond child hood memories of rolling pennies so we could take them to the bank.

Insanely boring activity.

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

#214

Post by SifJar »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #159
SifJar wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument always confuses me, as if "it makes it easier to not pay our taxes" is a legitimate argument for using cash

Here in the UK, this practice is so common it has a name: "paying cash in hand". Its literal meaning is just paying cash for something, but its implied meaning is that the recipient won't declare it to the tax authority (HMRC), and you often get a discount for paying cash in hand (so I've heard, I've never actually been offered this myself). Of course we're talking about individual tradesmen here, like plumbers or ha…

Yep, I'm in the UK too, I'm familiar with the practice - my point is just that it doesn't seem like a legitimate argument to be anti-electronic payments

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

#215

Post by SifJar »

cameronbrown wrote: post #167
quietbritishjim wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the UK, this practice is so common it has a name: "paying cash in hand". Its literal meaning is just paying cash for something, but its implied meaning is that the recipient won't declare it to the tax authority (HMRC), and you often get a discount for paying cash in hand (so I've heard, I've never actually been offered this myself). Of course we're talking about individual tradesmen here, like plumbers or ha…

Being paid cash in hand is usually how most teenagers get their first job too. If govt. clamped down on this then you'd see a lot of youngsters struggling to get onto the market, and I believe that's why they let it slide.

I'm not sure I totally buy this argument - the logic being that teenagers are only employed because employers can get away with paying them less due to lack of tax. But there are already lower minimum wages for these ages, so it'd still be cheaper than hiring older employees. Plus a lot of these jobs would be part time, so could potentially result in an income lower than the personal allowance (currently £12.5k) and be tax-free anyway

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

#216

Post by Symbiote »

catalogia wrote: post #209
Symbiote wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't Americans use half dollars? I think everywhere else I've travelled, someone (or a machine) giving change will optimize it to the fewest coins. £3.85 would be £2, £1, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p. The only exception is something like a food stall that's set all their prices to multiples of €1 (I've seen this several times in Germany), they might keep plenty of €1 and €2 coins for change. If someone pays with smaller co…

I think it's dictated from up top; I'd use them if they were common in circulation, but I'm not to go out of my way to request rolls of them from a bank.

Presumably a business can request them from a bank?

I would expect 50¢ and $1 coins to be especially popular with people running vending machines or other machines giving change. 50¢ coins means refilling it less frequently, and encouraging $1 coins means less trouble recognizing paper money.

I wondered how the coin mechanisms on pool tables work in the USA, since nowadays it's probably not unusual for the price to be more than $1 or $1.50 (depending whether the mechanism has 4 or 6 slots). In Europe they just take whatever mixture of coins is appropriate, an image search suggests in the USA one must buy metal tokens to feed the machine.

I remember trying to feed about $6 in quarters into a payphone in the USA, when there was some issue with travel insurance and we had to make a call to Britain. We couldn't put them in fast enough. Eventually, the cheap motel let us use their normal phone.

(The first two are still in widespread use in the UK, although I haven't seen them much in Denmark or Sweden. Here, they're more likely to have replaced the coin slot with a contactless card reader.)

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

#217

Post by closeparen »

Retric wrote: post #163
closeparen wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you sre confusing "PII" and "data." The transaction does not identify you (generally), the ID on file for the account identifies you.

PII is more than just the classic SSN, name, and address etc. The IRS uses your last years tax data when verifying your identity for example. Your transaction history is PII as someone can correlate specific transactions to your identity.

It is personal data because it can be correlated to PII. It is not by itself PII. This is one of the most important differences between the US and EU regimes, regulating PII vs. all personal data.

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

#218

Post by Retric »

closeparen wrote: post #217
Retric wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PII is more than just the classic SSN, name, and address etc. The IRS uses your last years tax data when verifying your identity for example. Your transaction history is PII as someone can correlate specific transactions to your identity.

It is personal data because it can be correlated to PII. It is not by itself PII. This is one of the most important differences between the US and EU regimes, regulating PII vs. all personal data.

It depends on context, but the US does recognize financial data as PII.

“Personally Identifiable Information (PII) The term “PII,” as defined in OMB Memorandum M-07-1616 refers to information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, either alone or when combined with other personal or identifying information that is linked or linkable to a specific individual. The definition of PII is not anchored to any single category of information or technology. Rather, it requires a case-by-case assessment of the specific risk that an individual can be identified. In performing this assessment, it is important for an agency to recognize that non-PII can become PII whenever additional information is made publicly available - in any medium and from any source - that, when combined with other available information, could be used to identify an individual.“ https://www.gsa.gov/reference/gsa-privacy-program/rules-and-...

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

#219

Post by rags2riches »

antsar wrote: post #173
rags2riches wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like paying for parking with my phone. It lets me extend when the time is about to run out and cancel the remainder when I leave early.

Does cancelling refund the extra to your card? I assumed most systems would just eat it so I may as well leave it for the next guy.

Canceling refunds the extra amount to my balance. The app only charges the balance once a month.

You can't leave it for the next guy, because it's not a parking spot that's paid for. Instead, you pay to park a certain car in any spot in a larger parking zone.

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

#220

Post by AtomicOrbital »

bobbean wrote: post #154
pxx wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's, uh, taking a cut, albeit a smaller one. You'll lose the cashback or other rewards that you would've gotten for using a credit card. Gift cards can also commonly be obtained for under face value.

Where does Coinstar's cut come from then? Wouldn't they be giving back the same amount you put in?

no, the machine takes the cut by giving you back less than you put in
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