How Long Until People Don't Use Coins Anymore?

Production beginning of 1999 through end of 2018 in billions of coins.
$0.01 153.4
$0.05 25.3
$0.10 45.7
$0.25 49.2
$0.50 0.2
$1.00 4.4
USD 278.2


My plan would be to collect pennies at commercial banks at 20 per dollars for a month After that declare that pennies are now worth 5 cents apiece. That will make people empty their cans and drawer. After that you only mint new dimes and quarters. The nickels will vanish into collections and the half dollars and dollars are relatively inconsequential anyway.

Of course you would close the Philadelphia mint since Denver could easily make all the dimes and quarters we would ever need. In ten years declare that no more dimes and quarters will be minted and you will have to use cards or phone apps. Five years after that we stop printing the $1 and $2 banknote.

After that we print a new $20 banknote with a really ugly person on it, so people finally switch to the $50 banknote in the ATM (like Europe, Australia, Switzerland and Sweden).

I concur basebal21

Correct.

However, while there is no way to make the cent affordable (even if the material were free, the entire process still cost more than a cent each), the nickel could survive with a material change.

Still, kill them both and move on.

It doesn't make sense though except hypothetically on paper. Increasing the cost of living to save what is something like .0000000000001 percent of the federal budget from an entity that is profitable anyway makes absolutely no sense.

The larger the lowest denomination of money is the more expensive life gets and the faster prices rise. It doesn't matter cash or credit, if the dime is the lowest denomination prices will increase by a dime or more. That adds up very quickly over the course of a year because something was done that made absolutely 0 difference in the budget.

If we take the case of Canada and the elimination of the one cent coin, I am not sure I see this.
First, the guidance from Bank of Canada was to round up on CASH transactions ending in 0.03, 0.04, 0.08 0.09, but to round DOWN on transactions ending in 0.01, 0.02, 0.06 and 0.07. Assuming an equal likelihood of all numerical endings, this practice should make things cost neutral to the consumer. Add in that the rounding occurs only on the total bill, not individual items, and this lessens any potential inflationary impact.
Of course, non-cash transactions are completely unaffected.
Finally, there is economic data. Banks stopped distributing the Canada one cent coin 35 days into 2013. Inflation (CPI) did not increase during the balance of 2013.

Would it be different for elimination of both the cent and the nickel? Normal rounding off procedures would mean transactions ending in 1, 2, 3 or 4 would be rounded down, but transactions ending in 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 would be rounded up. This gives a slight bias (one out of 10) toward the price charged in cash transactions going up. What this would amount to:
- cash transactions of about $1 would increase by an average of $0.01 (1% "inflation")
- cash transactions of about $10 would increase to an average of $10.01 (0.1% "inflation")
- cash transactions of about $100 would increase to an average of $100.01 (0.01%).
So, the only thing that would affect overall inflation by a measurable amount is the small percent of the economy that is in cash transactions of a few dollars.

If I think of my own monthly expenses, I am well below 10% cash. I often use cash for groceries when the amount is under $20, and if I thought that rounding off would affect my cost, I would move those transactions to a debit card, too. I recognize that not all of America behaves like I do, but I am very hard pressed to see a connection between getting rid of pennies, and a measurable increase in the cost of living.

Hardly. It has a diverse economy that is more similar to ours than different. It is large enough to expect a similar outcome if the U.S. followed suit.
(and to be more accurate, Canada's population is over 4 times that of NYC... comparing it to the State of California is better ).

Canada has one of the seven largest economies in the world and is in the G7. That said, we have distinct economic and political situations from our Northern neighbor. I am not currently aware of monetary denominations being a significant issue in either country, i.e. they both seem to work satisfactorily.