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How Many U.S. Dollar Bills Are There in Circulation?

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How Many U.S. Dollar Bills Are There in Circulation?

How Many U.S. Dollar Bills Are There in Circulation?

When you think about it, the journey of each individual currency note is pretty incredible.

After being printed or minted, each bill is then passed between people and businesses to facilitate transactions. If it’s a $1 or $5 bill, it changes hands on average about 110 times per year – and if it’s a $20 bill, it’s more like 75. The interesting part is that almost every transaction is linked to the one before it, and the series of subsequent transactions for each bill creates a unique, broad story.

By the time a bill is retired, it would have facilitated many hundreds of transactions that enabled everything from the purchase of used cars to the shadier deals in underground markets. It’s a pretty interesting tale for such a little piece of paper.

Dollar Bills, in Aggregate

Today’s infographic from TitleMax gives a sense of what happens when all of those individual stories are combined together into one large one: the U.S. supply of currency notes, the shelf life of each type of bill, and how the whole system works as a whole.

In total, there is a total of about $1.5 trillion in U.S. physical currency in circulation, and roughly 80% of this value comes from the 11.5 billion $100 notes that are in circulation.

NoteNumber of bills in circulation
$1 bill11.7 billion
$2 bill1.2 billion
$5 bill2.8 billion
$10 bill1.9 billion
$20 bill8.9 billion
$50 bill1.7 billion
$100 bill11.5 billion

Of course, as we showed in All the World’s Money and Markets, this is just a fraction of the total money that exists as a whole, which includes digital deposits and liquidity added by central banks. That’s why, in the U.S. today, there’s about $14 trillion in total money supply (M2), of which physical currency makes up only about 11% of the total value.

Turnover Per Bill

Every year, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing is responsible for printing new dollars – and interestingly, 70% of these new bills are used to replace older notes going out of circulation.

That raises the question: how long does each bill last on average?

NoteAverage Life Span
$1 bill5.8 years
$5 bill5.5 years
$10 bill4.5 years
$20 bill7.9 years
$50 bill8.5 years
$100 bill15.0 years

This means that printers are mostly turning out new batches of $1 and $20 bills, since there are more of those in circulation than most other bills.

At the same time, many new $100 notes are also being printed as well since they are the second most common bill. However, these last 2-3x as long as smaller denominations.

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Personal Finance

Chart: The Declining Value of the U.S. Federal Minimum Wage

This graphic compares the nominal vs. inflation-adjusted value of the U.S. minimum wage, from 1940 to 2023.

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The Declining Value of the U.S. Federal Minimum Wage

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

This graphic illustrates the history of the U.S. federal minimum wage using data compiled by Statista, in both nominal and real (inflation-adjusted) terms. The federal minimum wage was raised to $7.25 per hour in July 2009, where it has remained ever since.

Nominal vs. Real Value

The data we used to create this graphic can be found in the table below.

YearNominal value
($/hour)
Real value
($/hour)
19400.36.5
19450.46.82
19500.759.64
19550.758.52
1960110.28
19651.2512.08
19701.612.61
19752.112.04
19803.111.61
19853.359.51
19903.88.94
19954.258.49
20005.159.12
20055.158.03
20107.2510.09
20157.259.3
20187.258.78
20197.258.61
20207.258.58
20217.258.24
20227.257.61
20237.257.25

What our graphic shows is how inflation has eroded the real value of the U.S. minimum wage over time, despite nominal increases.

For instance, consider the year 1960, when the federal minimum wage was $1 per hour. After accounting for inflation, this would be worth around $10.28 today!

The two lines converge at 2023 because the nominal and real value are identical in present day terms.

Many States Have Their Own Minimum Wage

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 30 states and Washington, D.C. have implemented a minimum wage that is higher than $7.25.

The following states have adopted the federal minimum: Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Meanwhile, the states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee have no wage minimums, but have to follow the federal minimum.

How Does the U.S. Minimum Wage Rank Globally?

If you found this topic interesting, check out Mapped: Minimum Wage Around the World to see which countries have the highest minimum wage in monthly terms, as of January 2023.

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