The U.S. Mint has a thought for your pennies: Cash 'em in.
People who hoard pennies, toss them away, fling them into pools of water for good luck or simply ignore the cent are causing a national crisis of sorts. Really.The economy is up nationwide. People are buying things. Those purchases often end in odd amounts, like $5.21 or $10.97. But businesses don't have enough pennies to make change.
So businesses have asked banks for more cents. The banks in turn have asked the Federal Reserve for bigger allocations of pennies.
The Federal Reserve requested more pennies from the U.S. Mint, which makes all the money. And the mint is pinching out pennies as fast as it can - 19 billion this fiscal year, up from 15 billion last year.
But it's not enough. The U.S. Mint, the banks and businesses are still coming up short.
So the mint sent a message back down the money chain. It asked the Federal Reserve to ask commercial banks to be frugal in their demands for pennies and to get their customers to cash in pennies.
"We've found the major banks have complied in ordering fewer pennies," said Gerald Dalling, assistant vice president of the Salt Lake branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
First Security Bank, for example, normally gets $30,000 worth of pennies each week from the Federal Reserve Bank. But because of the crunch, First Security dropped its order to $12,000.
That's required First Security to limit its branches to $100 to $200 in pennies per week, instead of their normal allotment of $500.
"They've been OK so far," said Jay Sorensen, manager of First Security's central vault.
Although some banks on the East Coast are offering customers $1.10 for $1 worth of pennies, Utah banks are counting on the good will of customers to help alleviate the penny predicament.
First Security, for example, has posted signs like this one in its branches: "Cash in your pennies. Due to a nationwide penny shortage, we need your pennies. Free penny wrappers upon request."
Brenda Gatling, public information officer at the U.S. Mint Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said Friday the penny situation shouldn't be called a shortage.
"We have a study conducted by the Federal Reserve that determined there were 132 billion pennies in circulation at the end of 1990. Since then we've produced 35 billion more pennies," Gatling said. "The penny is out there. It's just people aren't circulating them and getting them back into use."
It's true. Somewhere along the line, people got the idea that a penny really wasn't worth much, at least individually. The penny is the Rodney Dangerfield of money: It doesn't get any respect.
Pennies end up smashed on railroad tracks, ground down to resemble dimes so they can be stuffed into parking meters or carelessly stuffed in kitchen junk drawers or between sofa cushions.
"People see them lying in the street, and they won't even bend over and pick them up any more," Dalling said.
Young people apparently loathe the penny. According to a 1986 Epcot Center poll, 13 percent of those surveyed who were under 18 said they throw pennies away. Only 2 percent of people 65 or older said that.
But people take to heart the adage "A penny saved is a penny earned." They plunk pennies into jars, buckets and piggy banks; it's practically a national pastime.
According to a recent Deseret News poll, 70 percent of Utahns say they have a stash of pennies at home. Most of the respondents, 51 percent, said their hoard has more than 500 pennies.
Hand them over! Cash 'em in! Give them back! Consider it your patriotic duty.
If people aren't saving their pennies, they're tossing them into wishing wells and other pools of water, hoping for good luck and oblivious to the pending disaster.
Consider this: volunteers who recently mucked out the Blue Star Spring in Yellowstone National Park found 3,650 pennies. And they didn't even get to the bottom of the spring.
But getting people to part with their pennies could prove difficult. At First Security Bank, there's been little response from customers to the plea for pennies, Sorensen said.
"They're all out there, more than we need, if people would just turn them in," Dalling said.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Where are pennies?
1. Buckets, jars, piggy banks and under sofa cushions in people's homes.
2. The bottom of wishing wells, public fountains and other pools of water.
3. Smashed on railroad tracks to show the power of the locomotive.
4. As ornaments on penny loafer shoes.
5. The dump.
6. The dime slot on parking meters.
7. Canada.
8. Junk drawers in kitchens.
9. Disneyland penny arcade and waters surrounding It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean and Thunder Mountain amusement rides.
10. The streets of America.