That’s what I was referring to. Less touch items is recommended. So maybe people are spending their stacks of paper dollars but just shoving the change they receive into a drawer somewhere so they don’t need to handle it. Just speculation.
Thus my initial comment - it’s…odd.
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Interesing.
The article does seem to explain it though :
"The U.S. Mint produced fewer coins than usual this spring in an effort to protect employees from infection. But the larger problem — as with many other pandemic shortages — is distribution.
During the lockdown, many bank lobbies where people can recycle coins were off limits. And coin-sorting kiosks in retail stores saw reduced traffic. With many businesses closed, unused coins piled up in darkened cash drawers, in pants pockets and on nightstands, even as banks went begging.
“The flow of coins through the economy … kind of stopped,” Powell said.
The Fed chairman stressed that this clog in the financial plumbing should clear quickly, now that businesses are reopening, and that supplies of coins should soon be back to normal.
Coinstar, which operates 17,000 coin-sorting kiosks around the country, says people have started cashing in more change as stay-at-home orders are lifted."
So the first the mint started making fewer coins. Then the coins stooped circulating. I bet the problem is happening now as a delayed result of that impact. Coins make a slow loop from mint to bank to store to peoples pockets back to banks. That all takes time.
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It could be as simple as the fact that many bank lobbies have free coin counting machines for members to use for dumping their accumulated coins. Those lobbies are now closed or accessible by appointment only.
None of the men around my house spend their change. Change is not on the nightstands but thrown into a container on the kitchen bar.
Every so often I place all the collected change into the car cigarette lighter space. When I go into town to buy donuts (only accepts cash) I grab a handful of change to go with my paper money & never get change in return.
Donut store is run by Vietnamese & only place in town where I use paper money.
But to the point, has this increased the past 3 months? I would think the opportunities to even receive change have fallen drastically, decreasing the volume of coins subjected to that fate…
Interesting that a year later some supply chain issues remain and are even exacerbated. Coffee especially has a real production risk :
I know this started as a toilet paper thread but I’ve been reading about lots of shortages such as building materials like wood, integrated circuits, leading to shortages of products that use them like cars, laptops, tablets and on television tonight there was a report of possible gasoline shortages. Not a material but I’ve been reading about lots of businesses that cannot find people to hire.
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I called a fence repair company, the fence around our home needed some upkeep. The repair man told me about the wood shortage. His estimate left me dumfounded.
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Signs All Point to a Gasoline Shortage This Summer
Yes, now there’s one more thing to worry about as a lack of qualified tanker-truck drivers starts to eat into gasoline supplies at stations
And a NTTC representative told CNN that somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 truck drivers are no longer able to drive because of a new federal program that identified their history of prior drug or alcohol violations, which went online in January 2020. Even with offers of higher pay, it appears there simply won’t be enough drivers to get all of the gasoline in the U.S. where it needs to go this summer.
There likely won’t be enough drivers to move things like food, either, as the harvest season approaches, according to the California Farm Bureau.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36306966/gasoline-shortage-summer-cnn-says/
I have a relative who runs a restaurant and he says he’s seeing lots of price increases in his supply chain. He cited chicken and cooking oil specifically.
The price of lumber is 4x what it was a year ago::
That sounds like a lot but there are 3.5 million truck drivers in the USA and so 50k of that is ~1.4%
And I don’t know about you all but we I sure as hell don’t want methheads and drunks driving 40 ton semis down the freeway when I’m on the road.
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as I read the story the shortage is in drivers of gasoline delivery trucks, who require a lot more qualifications than ordinary truck drivers and there are a lot fewer. Agreed we want super safe drivers but I don’t know what gets someone on the government’s s-list and how accurate the list is. Is the driver able to challenge being put on the list? If I know the bureaucracy it is probably not easy.
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This shows how shortages in one area lead to shortages in other areas leading to inflation
A rental car shortage is increasing the price to rent a car to new heights and some companies don’t have the cars available.
The semiconductor shortage has slashed vehicle production so much that rental-car companies can’t get the new cars they need, so they have resorted to buying used vehicles at auction
The demand is sending used-car costs soaring. The Manheim Index, which measures prices at wholesale auctions, shows they’re 52% higher than they were a year ago.
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Did anyone not see this happening, when rental-car companies started dumping inventory because of the lack of renters?
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Wondering why you can’t find jars and lids anywhere this year? We uncovered some potential causes of the canning supply shortage with industry experts and home canners. Plus, we’ll share alternate ways to preserve your food until supplies are back in stock.
And they came from a fancy place. They’re too straight to come from from HD or Lowes.
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Hey guy, glad to see you back here. 
Getting my fence repaired is still on my list, but waiting is probably the wrong thing. Never thought wood would be one of the first items to increase. Poor times coming!