First sobriety checkpoints, now something else I’ve wondered about for a while and finally got around to researching: Why are there so few $2 bills?
The Wikipedia article is particularly informative, but the short version is that there was a lull in production decades ago, but they now produce the $2 actively. They’re not at all scarce: they minted 61 million in 2005, for example. There are a few reasons they’re not in wide circulation:
- Everyone thinks they’re rare, so when they come across one, they save it.
- Not everyone seems to think that $2 bills are even legal tender
- A big catch 22, but cash drawers don’t have a slot for $2’s, so stores don’t use them in any great volume.
- Also a big catch 22, but banks, although they usually carry $2’s, don’t usually hand them out unless you ask.
So basically, there are hundreds of millions of two-dollar bills in circulation, but no one’s actually circulating them. They’re not at all rare, they’re just in everyone’s sock drawers.
When I get them I use them. I find them to be very convienient. In Canada $1 and $2 coins are very common and widely used. Perhaps the fact that they don’t print paper $1 and $2 bills anymore has something to do with that. 🙂 I’d actually like to see us go to coins for $1 and $2. It would make things a lot easier I think. Also coins last much longer than paper money so the additional costs of minting would probably be made up over time but having having to print so much of it.