The Sacagawea Dollar has been pretty much a flop, after over $65MM was spent on its roll-out. Sure, collectors grabbed some for their collection, but very few people (and businesses) actually use the thing.
So what’s the best policy decision here? Obviously it’s to do something to appeal to more collectors but not make it any more usable to consumers or businesses.
Putting the faces of U.S. presidents on dollar coins would entice collectors, but there still would be challenges in getting the coins into cash registers and people’s pockets, the chief of the U.S. Mint said Wednesday.
The proposal would replace Sacagawea, a Lemhi Shoshone Indian who helped Lewis and Clark find their way to the Pacific Ocean, now on the front of the coin, with a rotating design approach honoring presidents in the order they served the country. The face of the coin featuring a president would change four times a year. The back of the coin would feature the image of the Statue of Liberty.
While dollar coins are less expensive over their lifetime (their increased manufacturing and handling costs offset by their longer lives), those issues don’t directly impact consumers and businesses, so they’re not an incentive to change. If there’s no reason for people to switch, they won’t. Carrying dollar coins isn’t that big of a hassle (from my experience in the UK), but people will probably tend to use paper as long as it’s available.
So the Mint (and Congress) need to either (a) get rid of the dollar bill, or (b) get rid of the dollar coin. Keeping both and pandering to collectors seems both inefficient and wasteful of (ahem) money.
(via Sake of Argument)
Phasing out the bill in favour of the coin is probably the answer. Canada has been using the dollar coin since 1987, and the two-dollar coin since 1993 (IIRC), and there hasn’t been much opposition because the bills were phased out at the same time.
Yeah. I suspect that, should Congress have the balls to do it, there would be some reflexive bitching and then everyone would get on with it.
Get rid of the bills, and keep Sacagawea Dollar coin.
My problem with both the Susan B. Anthony dollar and the Scagawea Dollar is that they are too close in size and shape to the quarter. Yes, consumer acceptance will depend on the elimination of the dollar bill (since that’s the only thing that will convince the vending machine industry to start accepting the coins), but they need to make the dollar coin distinctive, otherwise we will all spend lots more time counting out our change. I’d love to see the dollar coin in the same form factor as the english pound coins I saw in London years ago. They were twice as thick as any other coin, and that made them easy to find in your pocket. I found their shape, size, and weight aesthetically pleasing too.
I love the pound coins. Thicker and smaller, they have a nice heft to them.
But let’s face it — we can’t identify dollar bills from fives by touch, either. It’s not that big of a hardship. If we were using them regularly, I suspect we wouldn’t have much problem.
With my limited time in Canada, I had no problem with the coins, although for wallet-carrying folk a new design that allows for more coin storage is important. And the only way is to phase out the paper; people are creatures of habit. Loonies ($1 Canadian) and Twonies ($2) are different in weight from the other Canadian coins, and they are significantly different from each other.
However, it does take getting used to when you get several dollars in change and no paper.
The one problem I had in the UK was that I kept wondering why I was running out of cash so quickly — until I’d discover I had a dozen pounds or so in my change pocket.
Of course we could get used to a dollar that’s close to a quarter eventually. I’m saying the lack of distinctness of the dollar coin has been a big reason it hasn’t caught on. I rarely see a vending machine that will take them, and I wonder if the similarity of the dollar to the quarter makes the mechanism more difficult to manufacture. I have seen cashiers mistake a Scagawea for a quarter (unfortunately never in my favor), and that’s certainly a reason to avoid their use. If the new coin was distinctive and aesthetically pleasing like the pound is, I think people would be more likely to use them. I know I would.
Perhaps so — though if folks became used to having dollar coins, I’ll betcha cashiers would pay more attention as to which was which.
At any rate, it seems moot for the time being.