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by toast0 2160 days ago
Coin shortages make it harder to pay for things in cash. Transportation like ferries, light rail, commuter rail, etc often are accepting bills and returning coins as change. If they don't have coins to provide change, you may need to provide exact change, pay more and accept the loss (this is common on buses when paying with bills), not be able to purchase a ticket, or have to use a credit/debit card. In my area, the county bus system decided to make the buses free to avoid handling money and they didn't make change anyway, and the state ferries notified people to be prepared to make exact change and/or use cards.

Same thing happens if coin operated machines with bill accepters don't have coins to make change. It might not be obvious, but the coins inserted into most machines aren't directly dispensable as change, so if it runs out of change, it won't be able to make change until the operator comes to service it, which might be longer intervals these days.

It sounds like the coin requests from banks to the federal reserve can't all be filled, and the federal reserve is rationing coins until that changes. I suspect some of the usually net coin receiving businesses aren't open, or aren't receiving the same number of coins, making it harder for the net coin giving businesses to get the supplies they need.