Comment by basscomm
12 hours ago
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.
> Nobody really gave us training on this stuff, do other countries use a coin purse or some such?
Americans also use coin purses or rubber coin pouches, but I mostly only see older generations using them.
This was a whole thing in the 70s. There was a 3 step plan:
1) Bring back the $2 bill (it had not been printed for a decade+)
2) Redesign the $1 coin (Eisenhowers being too big and heavy)
3) Stop printing $1 bills
Unfortunately they never got to step 3, which made 1 and 2 pointless, and here we are.
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.
There's a lot of physical infrastructure that works with quarters
Very good point and I think I'm convinced.
That only works if you completely reconfigure sales tax
> We also have a $2 bill that nobody uses for whatever reason.
It’s because retailers wont accept them - they think they’re counterfeit because no one uses them. A catch-22 situation, really.
I've never had a retailer refuse to accept a $2 bill, although a couple of times the clerk summoned the manager about it.
But I've never found a retailer willing to give a $2 bill as change.
The resistance to the $2 bill is a very weird cultural thing.
> 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.
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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.