Why Are Businesses Allowed To Reject Your Cash?

On Cashless-Only Payment Systems and Class

A frustrating trend I have noticed in the post-COVID era is that of more businesses that reject cash in favor of credit and debit payments. Most people around me seem to treat it as a mild inconvenience, or perhaps don't notice how peculiar this practice is. Perhaps I ought to survey them. But for me, this trend has darker, serious implications. We need to understand why this development is occurring and halt it. Why are businesses getting away with not accepting your cash?

According to the official website of America's central bank, the Federal Reserve, there is " no federal statute mandating that private businesses... must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise" Full disclosure, I live in the state of Maryland. From my experiences I can infer that there is no state mandate that requires businesses to accept my money in the form of cash. If I am wrong, then such businesses would be breaking the law. If I am right, this means that we are losing what little control we have over our own money.

While this may only be happening at a small level right now (most places that only took card were small sized independent or chain businesses), it could slide into bigger businesses, especially retail.

Cashless payments became normalized during the COVID-19 outbreak under the guise of protecting workers and customers from being exposed to the airborne virus by touching cash, which, as it turns out, was completely unnecessary. In effect, it has enabled many businesses to merge with the banking-payment card complex.

It should be clear that the Cashless-Only Transaction Model results in businesses and consumers becoming more dependent on the financial industry. The more dependent you are on an entity, the more power that entity has over you. The financial industry is not satisfied with holding your money and doing God knows what with it. They are moving to monopolize money transactions. One can infer that this was an example of a Problem-Reaction-Solution process.

Systems are not perfect. Many of them work most of the time, but not all of the time. But not all of the time. And when they fail, that can have huge consequences for all parties involved.

Capital One is facing a class action lawsuit because of a service outage that lasted from January 15 to January 18, 2025. During his period, customers were unable to access the funds in their accounts, "depriving them of the ability to purchase essential items such as food, clothing, and shelter." The bank had one job-to hold your money so that you can access it when you need it- and they failed. The last thing we should do is accept a circumstance in which you are only able to spend money through the use of payment cards.

The rise of cash-rejection among businesses poses the risk of marginalizing those who don't own cards, such as children and especially homeless people. If enough businesses in a certain area adopt cash-only practices, homeless people may be driven further away and concentrate in sections of cities where businesses still accept cash. A lot of people might welcome that change. Many folks are afraid of homeless men and would rather not have to see them.

But we should not allow homeless people to be further disappeared from our society. We need to reintegrate them into society by investing in mental counseling, building social housing, halting the growth of corporate landlords, limiting rent profiteering, and ensuring a living wage for all.

We need not more marginalization of the homeless. Most of us are more likely to experience homelessness than becoming a millionaire. The transition to a cashless only transaction system threatens to widen the divides among the lower classes.

While only a relatively small number of businesses reject cash altogether, it is possible that a crisis event could accelerate this process. A recent bird flu outbreak has resulted in American chicken populations to be culled, resulting in an increased scarcity of eggs, and thus higher prices for that product. If the bird flu outbreak is deemed enough of a health risk by authorities, we should expect to see some kind of repeat of at least some of the policies implemented in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, especially switching to card-only payment systems on a much wider scale than in response to COVID-19. I think it would be relatively easier to pull it off than another lockdown, given the backlash to those lockdowns. Most American adults have payment cards already, so would they see this transition as an infringement on their freedoms like so many did the COVID lockdowns?

We must begin the process of scaling back our dependence on the banking-payment card complex in our transactions as much as possible. I would suggest holding a significant amount of money in the form of cash at all times. You should always have a lot of cash, especially for emergencies such as service outages.

Try to use cash instead of cards to pay for things as much as you can.

If a business does not accept cash, we should organize to boycott them and seek an alternative that does accept cash. All businesses have their own agendas, and I doubt they'd be as willing to merge more with the bank-payment card complex if they knew they'd get backlash from their customers and risk losing profits. It is in these businesses' best interest that money flows into them whether it is cash or card. If we put aside convenience, we can pressure cashless-only firms to accept our cash or go out of business.

Lobby your local government to require all businesses to accept cash , like Washington, DC did.

Additionally, we may have to start experimenting with small-scale economic systems controlled by local communities, that have no ties to establishment financial institutions and are thus not dependent on them. We must build community gardens and mutual aid programs so that we are at least capable of ensuring that community members have access to what they need, even when our financial institutions stop working. If we can develop successful, small-scale, alternative models to the existing order, we can make the financial industry obsolete, because we would be less reliant on them.

If you are concerned about the growing culture of cash rejection by businesses, I think we need to use some combination of these tactics.