Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: The Great American Coin Shortage of 2020

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

In addition to all the lousy things that’s come out of the Coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. is also experiencing a coin shortage thanks to a stalled-out economic system that normally circulates coins. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

this season on Running the Break with CJ and Alex. Rapper Meek Mill, so obviously huge ties to Philly was at a Sixers game recently and in what seemed like a real-life curb your enthusiasm as an episode, he accidentally tripped a ref sitting courtside as the ref was running back up court. You know what CJ? I gotta say, I feel like that should be a technical foul, one free throw for the opposing team. Yes, if you rep your town and your team as much as you do Meek Mill, that he's a Sixer, right? So the opposing team's got to take free throws or unless, you know, if we're going off of the curb episode, does Meek have the discography of that compares to like

Seinfeld tapes that he could bring to the ref's, you know, hospital bed? Shout out to curb, that was one of the greatest episodes ever. Listen to Running the Break with CJ and Alex on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by FanDuel. Make every moment more with FanDuel Sportsbook, an official partner of the NBA. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff on Josh. There's Chuck, Jerry's over there, let's get going. This is short stuff about shortages of coins shortly now. Hey, can you spare some change? No. Why not? What was it? I can't remember who said it. I think the line is, haven't you heard? There's a coin shortage. Oh, okay. Let's try this again.

Hey, Mr. Can you spare some change? No. Why not? Haven't you heard? There's a line. Coin shortage. There's a coin shortage. And that summarizes our TV show success quite nicely. And scene. And scene. So, there really is a coin shortage. Our dramatization was a real one or based on real life, a true story. In the United States, our listeners in Australia and New Zealand and UK and Germany, who knew? Did we hear from a German? Is that what happened? They said, yes, we're listening to you in Germany. Okay. And they said cryptically and watching. And what some of you guys who are in America might not realize is that if you went into a store,

the stores that are open right now during the pandemic here in the United States, you might find a sign that says, please pay with exact change or use a credit card because we ain't got no change for you if you need it. And it's actually kind of becoming a bit of a problem and a conspiracy theory over here. Yeah. So, there are coins out there. The US Treasury says that there were almost 48 billion dollars worth of coins in circulation in April of this year, which is about 400 million more than last year. But the deal is, is those coins aren't moving. They got no movement going on like they usually do for a few reasons. Obviously, when businesses closing and banks sort of closing or reducing their hours and things like arcades

and laundromats and public transit where you use a lot of coins and convenience stores, when all that stuff closes up, it's going to put a serious dent in the coin flow. It is because I mean, all of these businesses that are especially coin heavy, they act as kind of like part of the circulatory system that moves coins through the economy. And if they're not closed, meaning they're not accepting coins, you can't let the coins pass through them. So, instead, they go back home to people's houses, which is where a lot of them are right now. Also simultaneous to that, Chuck, the US Mint was like, well, we don't want to put our people at risk. So, we're actually going to slow production and furlough a bunch of people because we don't

want them on the job giving COVID to one another, which is kind of sensible. And then beyond that, even if you do have a business, a lot of people are saying, they want contact lists, they don't want cash passing back and forth, they'll maybe shove a credit card reader in your face from a poll that it's attached to. And they'll say, stick your credit card in that, not doing a lot of cash or asking for exact change. And again, that just means there are coins out there, they're just not flowing through the economy like they normally do. Right. So, for all these reasons, there is an actual a coin shortage, not a coin shortage in that they don't exist, but a coin shortage in that they're not flowing through like they're

supposed to, like you were saying, which I mean, if you were a thinking person, you might by this time have thought, who cares? It doesn't matter. But it does for a lot of reasons. And up first is that there are a lot of stores, kinds of stores, like you said, public transit, the public transit store where you go to buy public transits and coins. And then laundromats, there are certain kinds of businesses that heavily rely on the free and open flow of coinage for their businesses to function. And if you go into one of those businesses and they say, you need to pay with exact change, is that okay? Some of their customers are going to be like, no, that's not okay. I don't have exact change and I want my change back. Some of those stores have tried to get creative and have said,

how about rather than us give you change back, we donated on your behalf to a charity, like you kind of round up your bill to have some of that donated. That makes sense. But if you're kind of going through hard times, which a lot of us are, you want that change back. So then some stores have said, okay, all right, we don't actually have physical coins here to give you change, but we can give you a store gift card with that amount on it. How about that? And some customers said, that's fine, whatever. But I can't imagine how much of a dent in a store's efficiency stopping and adding like 38 cents to a gift card for every third customer who wants to pay with cash is doing to the stores in the United States that are, by the way, already struggling because they have

opened up in this pandemic, simply because they need to to keep the lights on. Yeah. Or some stores are saying, how about in lieu of the 37 cents I compose a poem in which I integrate the words 37 cents, right? And I will sing it to you. Right. Or maybe it takes a lot of time. Maybe our head cashier, Bucky, will give you 38 cents worth of pot from his stash. I wonder what 38 cents worth of pot looks like. I don't know. Probably that's a lot, right? Sure. From everything I've read. Should we take a break? Yes. All right, we'll be right back with more coin shortage. Well, now when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck. It's stuff you should know. All right. Hey, everybody, when you're

staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren and Nova Scotia who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're

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All right. So we got a coin shortage and ain't flowing. The National Grocers Association and some other retail trade groups sent a letter to Jerome Powell, the Fed Reserve Chair, and Steve, how do you pronounce that? Harvey? Nuchen? Oh, yeah. Nuchen? Manuchin? Manuchin. The Manuch? No, that's the Mooch, Scar Moochie that you're thinking of. Oh, that's right. Yeah. He's the Treasury Secretary and they sent a letter in June saying, hey, you're rationing these coin shipments to the banks and that's really threatening our business because it's, you know, we come from a place of privilege to be able to sit around and joke about this because I'm like, oh, I just put everything on my Amix because I get sky miles that

are now useless. But here's the deal. If you have a house cold income below $25,000, you are paying for cash, you're paying for 43% of your transactions and cash. Right. This is why finally we reach why it really actually matters because there's a significant number of Americans out there who depend on having cash handy because the banks have said, we don't think you're worthy of having a bank account. And the credit card companies have said, we're not going to extend you any credit. So all you've got is cash. That's your only option. And so if the store's trying to give you some business or run around about donating your 38 cents to charity, no, you probably want that 38 cents back and not having that 38 cents in circulation is a big problem for a large

number of people. Yeah. Here's a couple of other stats that may be surprising if you always just throw down your credit card. 45% to 60% of sales at all grocery stores and convenience stores are cash. And for $10 or less, about half of all transactions period in the US are paid in cash if they're $10 or less. Yes. And also, I mean, there's a plenty of like gas stations and convenience stores out there that have us a longstanding policy that nothing under $5 or $3 or whatever can be put on a card because those credit card fees can really add up for a store like that. So now they have no choice. If they don't have change to give out, they have to take that credit card payment. So that's denting their bottom line too, the little small business owners as well.

It's just a huge cluster that needs to be fixed, Chuck. Yeah. And the fix sort of, there isn't a real fix right now because everything that's going on, you can't just put some artificial, you can't just like flood the market with coins because the problem is they're not flowing anyway. It's not that they aren't there. So the real solution is just eventually things will slowly return to normal as far as coin circulation goes, just like everything else returning to normal. But they are ramping up production of coins because they, I guess, heard the letter and they don't want to shortchange the banks at least. And I think the usual is a billion coins a month. They're now producing 1.2 billion coins a month,

at least in June, and then 1.35 billion a month for the rest of the year. Yeah. I mean, that's a substantial increase for sure. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about 350 million additional coins a month for the rest of 2020. That's a huge uptick. So they're definitely responding. But it seems like what everybody's saying is, hey, you, with the coin jar and your cupboard, you're the problem. Go take your coin jar to the coin star. I think the Fed actually specifically named coin star as a place where you should take your coins and trade them in for a gift card or some cash or something like that. Or if you don't want to pay whatever fee coin star charges, you can actually go into the bank,

take your coins. They will be happy to see you for the first time in their entire banking history showing up with a jar full of coins being like, can I have this in exchange for some bills? That will help get it back into circulation as well. Or you could just start spending them like pay in coins out of your coin jar that you have at home. Reintroduce it into the economy, in fact, is another way to put it. Yeah. I can't remember when we talked about this, but we talked about coins before and taking them to the bank and the fact that Emily and I, when we were first together and just broke, as you could imagine, would go on change dates because we would go to that coin star machine and dump them in there. And I think that's when you

said that you didn't do coin star because of the fee, if I'm not mistaken. That sounds like something I would say. Yeah. That was a long time ago though. Yeah. Well, I still don't pay the fee. It's still the same. It'll be etched on my tombstone. Yep. He wouldn't pay the fee. So you can do something by spending coins. That's a big one. And there's actually a hashtag that this coin task force that got put together came up with called get coin moving. Not even coins. Get coin moving. Brick love lamp. It's pretty bad. And here's a little tidbit for you to chew on while you're going through your coin jar, trying to figure out what you're going to buy first with it. A coin in the United States remains in circulation for up to

30 years. So all those coins they're pumping full of the economy with, they're going to be around for a while. Whereas the paper bills that we have usually only last about a year and a half. Wow. Pretty short life. That's it for short stuff, Chuck, don't you think? I think so. Well, then short stuff says everybody giddy up.