I’ve really been noticing that a lot. I think part of it may be because so many people pay with plastic. That’s dead easy. If you pay with cash, the cashier may be thinking “Oh drat! Now I have to figure out the change. Damn!” I’ve seen people struggle to put together coins to total 83 cents. It’s hard, man.
Schools used to really drill all kinds of arithmetic — and they also taught practical skills like “counting back change”. I’m pretty sure they don’t bother with that stuff now.
It’s easy to teach a cashier how to count out the correct change. Says the sales is $3.73 and the customer hands over a $20.00 ->
put the $20 on top of the register -> say 3.73
take out 2 cents ->say 3 75
take out a quarter -> say 4
take out a dollar -> say 5
take out a 5 -> say 10
take out a ten -> say 20
and then hand all that to the customer.
Easy Peases.