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Americans just don't like dollar coins
A $1 coin
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TEXT OF STORY
Renita Jablonski: All right, do you have everything you need for the day... like, your dollar coins? That's what I thought. The U.S. mint is launching yet another advertising campaign to get people to start using dollar coins. This time, there's a new message. Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson reports.
Commercial: She's gone . . . she's not there!
Jeremy Hobson: The latest ad from the U.S. Mint starts off with Lady Liberty walking through New York City to buy a hot dog with $2 coins:
Commercial: They last for decades, are 100 percent recyclable, and using them now could save our country billions of dollars.
The environmental plea is the Mint's latest attempt to hawk the dollar coin to consumers. But economist Robert Whaples at Wake Forest University says regardless of the message, Americans just prefer bills.
Robert Whaples: The public right now is voting with their pocket book, and saying there are these two things in circulation, we like this other one better. We're using it. We're showing you that we like it better by using it.
Whaples says the only way to get people to switch to coins is by following in the footsteps of the Europeans and getting rid of the notes altogether.
New faces on the coins won't cut it, he says. After all, if the faces of Washington and Jefferson couldn't convince the public, what makes the Mint think William Henry Harrison and James K. Polk will?
In New York, I'm Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
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When a vending machine gives me dollar coins in change, two things happen:
1. I meet cashiers who have never seen a dollar coin, or appear to be unwilling to accept them (maybe because there aren't enough slots in the cash drawer).
2. I find that I forget the coins are in my pocket, and I end up accidentally using more big bills and generating more change.
Both of the above problems are sure to lessen with time.
--I do like the idea of these coins. They make me feel like someone living in medieval times--I'm looking around for a satchel made of animal skins.
We get dollar coins as change when we use postage machines and buy train tickets for the rail line.
However, many people still aren't familiar enough with the coins not to cause problems! On a trip to New Orleans once, we had a cabbie refuse to accept them, when it was all we had! We finally tossed the coins in his tip jar and left. I'm sure he's still convinced we stiffed him.
Perhaps the commercials will at least make people more familiar with the coins. However, since the dollar has so little value anyway, why not switch altogether?
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