Doug’s Dime: How often do you use cash?

A new survey found that 42 percent of Americans make none of their purchases in cash in a given week, up substantially from the 24 percent who said as much in 2015. The fraction who make all or almost all of their transactions in cash is down by half, from 24 percent in 2015 to 12 percent in 2026. Overall, 46 percent of Americans are carrying cash on them all or most of the time, while 32 percent say they rarely or never have cash. This obviously conflicts with independent research conducted in New York City a little before the closing time of the bar, where zero percent of people from whom I asked for five dollars happened to be carrying any cash.

Michelle Faverio and Eugenie Park, Pew Research Center