"Replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin could save the government approximately $5.5 billion over 30 years. This would amount to an average yearly discounted net benefit—that is, the present value of future net benefits—of about $184 million. However, GAO’s analysis, which assumes a 4-year transition period beginning in 2011, indicates that the benefit would vary over the 30 years. The government would incur a net loss in the first 4 years and then realize a net benefit in the remaining years. The early net loss is due in part to the up-front costs to the U.S. Mint of increasing its coin production during the transition.

GAO has noted in past reports that efforts to increase the circulation and public acceptance of the $1 coin have not succeeded, in part, because the $1 note has remained in circulation. Other countries that have replaced a low-denomination note with a coin, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, stopped producing the note. Officials from both countries told GAO that this step was essential to the success of their transition and that, with no alternative to the note, public resistance dissipated within a few years."

MP: It seems obvious that the key to a successful transition to a $1 coin is the elimination of the $1 note, to overcome the "tyranny of the status quo."