US Businesses Beg to Get Spare Change Back in Circulation Due to Shortage

Time to empty out your piggy bank when you go shopping.

A group of trade associations that represent individual businesses asks the Treasury Department for more help, to convince Americans to get coins back in circulation.

They say the poorest are hardest hit.  The shortage of change hits people who do not have an ability to pay for items electronically the hardest.

The American Bankers Association, National Association of Convenience Stores, and National Grocers Association all want a new public campaign encouraging an increase in coin circulation.

One such campaign was already launched in response to the lack of coins circulating, earlier in the pandemic; as the health crisis changed consumers’ buying habits and shifted purchases to largely plastic cards.