PHILADELPHIA MINT WORKING OVERTIME

At the Philadelphia Mint — the nation's largest producer of coin currency — 14 presses, each producing 750 coins a minute, are running seven days a week to compensate for the pandemic-caused coin supply problems that turned quarters, nickels, and dimes into rare commodities.

"I've never seen anything like this in the past," said a veteran Mint worker who maintains the coin presses and asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

During each two-week pay period, he said, "I'm putting in about 30 hours' overtime."

The problem isn't a lack of coins, the Federal Reserve said, but a lack of circulation.

When the pandemic shut down businesses and financial institutions, the normal exchange of coins seized up. Even since reopening, concerns about cash as a COVID-19 spreader caused some businesses to insist on card-only transactions, despite Philadelphia's banning such restrictions.

The pandemic has also accelerated trends toward online shopping, Kumar said, where no coins change hands. The result: too much of the nation's $48 billion in circulating coins is sitting stagnant.

Denver's and Philadelphia's facilities combined are producing more coins than they have in 20 years, aiming to produce 1.65 billion coins monthly through the rest of the year.

The Federal Reserve has capped the volume of coins it is distributing to the nation's banks and credit unions to spread out change more evenly, but it would not estimate when coin circulation would get back to normal.

Presses running on weekends at the Mint have become the new norm. Coin dies are quickly worn out by the relentless pace.

"Employees have essentially been working seven days per week for three months," said Chris Rapcziewicz, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1023, which represents about 300 Philadelphia Mint workers.

To read the complete article, see:
The coronavirus has caused a coin shortage, and Philly's Mint is working overtime to make up for it (https://fusion.inquirer.com/news/coin-supply-circulation-change-mint-philadelphia-cashless-20200921.html)

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