Honestly nickels and dimes, and maybe even quarters, should go too. It's ridiculous that we don't have $1 and $2 coins in widespread circulation in the US (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it).
Quarters might be premature, but the half-cent was discontinued when it was worth a (modern equivalent) of $0.12-17. Even 20-30 years ago, when I was just starting to interact with money enough to have an opinion, I thought it was a hassle to deal with anything smaller than a quarter. The same logic behind getting rid of pennies (they cost more to make than the face value) also supports doing at least nickels.
> The same logic behind getting rid of pennies (they cost more to make than the face value)
I've honestly never understood why this is a valid reason to object to the coin. Coins aren't used only once, so that they cost most to make than their face value doesn't seem very important, unless the differential is much, much larger than it actually is.
I get what you mean, but the Mint does "sell" currency in a sense, so it's not a terrible point to make. It also serves as a decent benchmark for the "should we even bother" aspect; should we lose money by literally making money?
We also have a $2 bill that nobody uses for whatever reason.
I never understood the objections to the $1 coin, especially after the redesign to make it more distinct from a quarter. $1 coins are great for buying stuff out of vending machines since you don't have to fight with a dodgy bill acceptor or a mangled bill.
My only real objection I guess, and the reason I don't carry change of any sort, is because it's constantly falling out of my pockets. I'm rather tall, so many seating positions put my knees higher than my waist, which I think contributes to that.
Further, since I don't have enough pockets to have a dedicated change pocket, it's always getting caught up in my keys and/or pocket knife.
Nobody really gave us training on this stuff, do other countries use a coin purse or some such?
Lastly, they're just comparatively heavy.
I just carry cash around in either a clip or a "front pocket wallet" I think they're called, and it seems more convenient all around.
Yeah. My proposal would be to have 10 cent, 50 cent, and $1 coins (rounding everything to the nearest 10 cents), with $2 the smallest bill. And probably you could drop the $5 bill at that point.
There's a lot of physical infrastructure that works with quarters, and it's probably not worth giving that up for slightly improved coinage. Just drop all the coins smaller than a quarter.
There's also the 3rd amendment. It would be worthless to say soldiers can't demand change for the vending machine, when nobody at all can get quarters.
> But I've never found a retailer willing to give a $2 bill as change.
Mostly retailers don't stock $2 bills (because they're weird), so if a customer brings a $2, the cashier will put it in their their exceptional bills area, which usually is just large bills. No change is made with exceptional bills, so twos don't get recirculated.
It's hard to even get $10 bills in change these days because of the ways that retailers handle putting larger bills into the safe, and getting smaller bills for change out of the safe.
"Alright. Your total is $25.13. You're paying with $100? No, no, it's fine; I just hope you like fives and ones."
Dispensaries in OR/WA love $2 bills, for some chains they're as unremarkable as a $1 and must special request them in bulk to keep on hand for making change.
Sorry Europe and Canada, $1 and $2 coins are just absolutely terrible. I never want to have to think about where my change is. Bills are much lighter than coins and stack with the rest of the bills.
When I was in Japan everything was all-cash and the smallest bill was the equivalent of a $10, with equivalents to $1 and $5 coins being in common circulation. Most wallets they sold/people had had a coin pocket to account for this.
Nickels and dimes certainly have predecent. When the US killed the half-penny in 1857, it had a purchasing power of somewhere around 19 cents from 2024.
Honestly I'd rather just not have coins at that point, rather than try to push $1 and $2 coins. Then I can just carry my wallet for bills and not have to worry about keeping track of coins separately.
Gotta do something to make the $2 bill popular though, no idea how.
I'd mourn the loss of the quarter. I use those quite often.
> (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it)
Because they keep designing it in the stupidest way, making it easy to confuse with a quarter. I don't know why they do that.
That said, I do prefer paper $1 bills over coins. Paper is lighter and easier to carry. But I'd only slightly grumble if we replaced it with a reasonable coin.
That's why the dollar coin was redesigned in 2000. The old dollar coin had a reeded edge that was too similar to a quarter, so it was sometimes hard to distinguish if you had vision issues (or if you didn't have vision issues because they were about the same size as a quarter). The new ones have a smooth edge so you can tell them apart from quarters without having to look at them
True, and the new design is better than the old because of it. But it hasn't resolved the issue enough to really matter. Some less subtle physical difference is required -- put a hole in it, make it an obviously unique size, whatever.
At least that's how it seems to me. It's an interesting design issue. I don't personally care too much -- I'm fine with the paper bill -- but I do have curiosity about why the coin designers have made the decisions they did about the $1 coin.
Yeah, since I often buy things with cash in places that are so dark I can't see the coins that's a major consideration for me. JFC what planet do you live on?
If you have vision problems, US currency is totally unfriendly to you. Unlike other countries, which have bills of different sizes, all the US currency bills are the same size, so getting change as a blind person is basically relying on the honesty of whoever is behind the counter.
