MINT DIRECTOR MOY ON THE COVID-19 COIN SHORTAGE

The amount of coins in the economy hasn’t changed. It is the flow of those coins that has.

Businesses make and receive change when customers pay in cash. Then these businesses deposit coins at their banks. There, the worn-out ones are culled and the rest are wrapped in rolls that businesses use when they run low.

When banks run low, they order more from the Federal Reserve, and when the Fed’s inventory runs low, they place orders for more from the United States Mint.

This is the normal circulation of coins. COVID has disrupted it.

Many businesses are closed; coins are sitting in their cash registers. Most of those who have re-opened are avoiding handling cash as a means of stopping the spread of COVID. Instead the vast majority of transactions are now done with electronic payments like credit and debit cards.

Customers have also been impacted. Trips to the bank and grocery stores are less frequent and cashing in accumulated coins a less important errand. And, as is customary in times of economic crisis, others are hoarding cash as a precaution for a "rainy day.”

Operations at the United States Mint have not gone unchanged by the pandemic either. On top of the suppliers (and thus supply) reacting to COVID, the Mint has had to sanitize its manufacturing plants, adapt to newly complicated logistics, and reduced staff due to social distancing. And its manufacturing plants have been forced to close from time to time due to a few employees testing positive for the virus. This has all in turn shrunk its manufacturing capacity: Production is currently down while demand is up.

The United States Mint exists to make enough circulating coins to facilitate economic transactions. This shortage illustrates just how important coins, and more broadly cash, are to the world’s largest economy, even in the modern age of electronic transactions.

However, our nation’s coin shortage is merely temporary. It is an unintended consequence of COVID and our government’s response to it. As the economy opens more, usage patterns will normalize, and as the United States Mint’s production catches up, coin supply will increase just like toilet paper has.

To read the complete article, see:
Coin Shortage or Cashless Conspiracy? (https://www.newsmax.com/Finance/ed-moy/coin-shortage-cashless-conspiracy/2020/07/24/id/978938/)

To read the U.S. Mint's official statement, see:
United States Mint statement on circulating coins (http://news.coinupdate.com/united-states-mint-statement-on-circulating-coins/)

For more than 20 years, Jim Holton of Wauwatosa has been collecting coins. It all started with a piggy bank given to his son when he was born. Every day since Holton has been filling it up with his spare change Two decades later it's parlayed into three 5 gallon buckets of change.

"I heard on the radio they were having a coin shortage and with everything going on; I was like, 'I can help,"' says Holton.

On Thursday afternoon at North Shore Bank in Brookfield, Holton decided it was time to cash in. According to Holton’s weight predictions, each bucket weighs about 100 pounds. The buckets were wheeled in because they were too heavy to lift.

Holton got a workout just wheeling the money inside the bank.

"It’s heavy I am sweating," says Holton.

Jim’s final tally rang in at $5,366.05.

To read the complete article, see:
Coin Collector Cashes in to Help with Shortage During Coronavirus Pandemic (https://spectrumnews1.com/wi/madison/news/2020/07/24/coin-shortage-coronavirus-pandemic-bank-collector)

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