Meijer Stops Accepting Cash at Self Checkout Due to Coin Shortage

Meijer is one of the many stores impacted by the national coin shortage in the United States right now.

The Coronavirus pandemic has impacted our lives in so many different ways, and some of the biggest are financial. When the country went into lock down mode, our economy went spiraling downward. People were trying to save whatever they could, and hardly anyone was spending physical money in stores.

The lack of physical cash being spent in stores interrupted the flow of coins throughout the system. The Federal Reserve Chaiman, Jerome Powell explained the problem to CNN last week. The problem isn't that we don't have enough coins, the problem is that since everything is closed, those coins don't have a way to get spent in the economy.

So now that we understand the coin issue, you can see why stores like Meijer are forced to make some changes to adjust. The first move that many locations have put in place is to not accept cash at their self serve check out lanes. In a statement, Meijer Company spokesperson Frank Guglielmi explained that Meier would still accept cash payments on staffed checkout lanes, but the self check out would be credit/debit only.

I honestly don't know if I've ever used cash at the self checkout as it is. Maybe I'm the oddball here, but I feel like if you're going through self checkout, you are paying with plastic 90% of the time. This shouldn't be a big deal in the short term, but what happens if we have to do it for longer than expected?

With many states experiencing a rise in Coronavirus cases, the risk of another shutdown is looming. The chance of small businesses surviving another shut down are slim, and it will only make problems like the coin shortage even worse.

Hopefully we will all continue to be socially responsible so we can avoid another major shutdown.