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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ewomack, post: 25963751, member: 15588&quot;]These are interesting numbers, but mintages don&#039;t necessarily translate into usage. Just because the mint is making them, it doesn&#039;t mean they are getting used. How many of these are sitting in bank vaults? Or sitting in people&#039;s change jars? Or maybe people are still using coins just as much? If they are, it&#039;s hard to prove by mintage numbers alone.</p><p><br /></p><p>It would also be interesting to juxtapose the increase in mintage with the increase in population. The population of the US in 1960 was 179,2323,175. The estimated population in 2023 was 334,233,854. The population has more than doubled since 1960, and the mintages above have more or less reflected a similar increase. But again, this doesn&#039;t prove that people are actually <i>using</i> coins at a lower or higher rate. </p><p><br /></p><p>I have personally used next to no coins for the past 5 years. They, along with paper currency, have actually become an inconvenience. This doesn&#039;t make me happy, because I&#039;ve always enjoyed tangible money, but the reality is that I just don&#039;t need it anymore and life is actually easier without it. And anyone who thinks that the threat of the power going out makes tangible money a better bet, most cash registers and money counters, etc., are digital and electronic now, so the advantage has severely decreased. In the days of purely mechanical registers tangible currency may have held a larger advantage, but in today&#039;s heavily digitized economy I don&#039;t think it would make a huge difference. This of course varies by location as well, but overall the benefits of tangible money have diminished greatly over the past two decades. And, again, I&#039;m not happy about it, it&#039;s just the reality that I live in.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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