I work at a low income, working class, inner city high school. I have noticed that nickels have become the “new pennies” among the students at my school for at least a year now. Today, I witnessed a student that had just bought his school lunch and dropped a nickel out on the open floor. He looked down at it, saw that it was a nickel and walked away. Last month, at an outdoor table that some students were sitting, they got up to go to class and one of them dropped a coin. Another student looked down and made the comment that “it’s just a nickel”. So there on the floor it stayed as they walked away. Of course I would pick it up shortly thereafter, just like I did with the one in the cafeteria today. For years pennies would be scorned and nobody would pick them up as they walked by. Well it now seems nickels have joined the ranks of unwanted coins. (BTW - I have a piggy bank where I put all the found change each week and I average over $2.00 a week).
