Payments Are Going Digital, but Many Seniors Still Rely on Cash

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Health|Payments Are Going Digital, but Many Seniors Still Rely on Cash

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/health/elderly-cash-electronic-payments.html

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the new old age

“We’re putting another burden on the elderly that we don’t have to,” one researcher said.

A close-up view of a customer paying at a computer card reader at a coffee shop at a counter.

Dec. 7, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET

Some things you can no longer do with cash: Buy a well-loaded hot dog at any of the five Devil Dawgs eateries in and around Chicago. Order a Vermont Pale Lager from Hill Farmstead Brewery’s taproom in Greensboro Bend, Vt.

Attend the annual BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach, Calif., or buy food, drinks or merchandise there. Purchase admission to the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park, N.Y., or to many other sites maintained by the National Park Service.

The park service’s expanding no-cash policy exasperated several would-be visitors enough for them to sue in federal court earlier this year.

Anne Ronan, 70, a retired attorney, walks around Lake Merritt in Oakland, Calif., a few times a week. After the three-mile-plus trek, she sometimes stops at one of two local cafes. Neither accepts payment in cash.

Nor do a restaurant and a cocktail lounge nearby on Grand Avenue. “I don’t find it unusual anymore,” Ms. Ronan said.

To buy coffee and a croissant, she routinely carries a credit card in her pocket. She doesn’t find that bothersome, but “as a public policy, it’s not a good thing.”