How Long Until People Don't Use Coins Anymore?

Makes sense, but rounding should go both ways... sometimes up, sometimes down, always to the nearest whole. That being said, using electronic payment avoids the rounding controversy entirely.

Mandate a "convenience charge" for handling cash.

Indeed it seems like we are going down the rabbit hole!

A "convenience charge" for handling cash is at odds with reason in most situations, since, if I am not mistaken, retailers pay a percentage for the privelege of doing credit card business, NOT cash business. Though there is indeed the "inconvenience" of taking cash receipts to the bank.

For the record, the small business where I work would NEVER consider charging such a fee, but we are in a large metro area with banks on every other corner.

We were talking about South Korea. I do not think our rules apply there.

No problem. I was replying to PacoMartin's previous post. It was implied, but easily missed.

I would never suggest we do that here. Although, Congress has used the commerce clause to justify some sketchy consumer-unfriendly legislation in the past.

South Korea and European countries have the right to demonetize money. USA and Canada either by policy or law (I don't know which) never demonetize money. Every banknote and coin ever declared money is still worth its face value. The only thing that USA can do is destroy every banknote of a certain type that comes into the possession of the central bank. If the US fed gets a hold of a $500 or higher denomination it is destroyed. If Canadian central bank gets hold of a CAD$1000 banknote it is destroyed.

Since 1 January 1999 through 31 December 2018 US has produced 278.2billion coins, worth $4.4 billion in dollar coins and $19.8 billion in fractional coins. Before 1/1/1999 the FED reported to the Bank for International Settlements, that it was circulating $25.4 billion in coins of indeterminate denominations.

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

If the USA chose to copy South Korea, it would simply have to stop minting new coins and wait until the existing stock vanishes into collections. That process could take a decade. Other idea like buying back the coins or charging a fee to use them are not likely to be popular.

Besides legislative differences, South Koreans mostly live in large urban areas and regularly purchase mass transit passes. These passes can do double duty as electronic wallets for small purchases.

Another difference between the countries is that up until 2009 there were no banknotes larger than 10,000KRW which is less than $10. The idea was to minimize damage from counterfeiting, but most Americans were shocked to go to an ATM to remove $400 or so and get a pile of banknotes. Since then a 50,000KRW banknote has been issued, but people are used to paying for things electronically.

However, I expect to see other countries follow Korea's lead and demonetize coins.

Clearly, the pennies are being lost since 1999 they have produced far more US pennies than the Euro one cent and Two Cent coins
$0.01 =183.4 billion (1983-1998)
$0.01 =153.4 billion (1999-2018)
€0.01 =34.2 billion
€0.02 =26.3 billion

That is well over 1000 pennies for every USA inhabitant from 1983 on (Copper-plated Zinc). So even if we don't count Bronze without Tin (1959-1982) and Bronze with Tin (1907-1981) there should be a lot of pennies unless people are throwing them away.

I said 10 years as a wild butt guess to make 45.7 billion dimes and 49.2 billion quarters (from 1999-2018) vanish into collections or landfills. That is over 150 for each denomination per inhabitant in the USA.