On the Horizon is a New Glarus 360 feature looking beyond today’s headlines at larger economic, demographic, technological and cultural changes that may eventually reach our community. The goal is not to predict the future, but to recognize consequential changes while they are still far enough away to prepare for them.

Imagine a $20 bill making its way through New Glarus.

Someone uses it to buy lunch. The server receives part of it as a tip. She spends it at another local business. It comes back as change and eventually lands in a church collection plate, a school concession stand, a football pool, a kid’s birthday card or somebody’s pocket at a tavern.

Nobody necessarily knows where it has been. Nobody charges a fee each time it moves. It does not require electricity, Wi-Fi, a smartphone, a bank account or permission from a payment processor.

For thousands of years, cash has endured because of its remarkable simplicity: it is immediate, universally understood, requires no technology and changes hands without asking permission from anyone.

And it is slowly disappearing from everyday commerce.

Federal Reserve research found cash represented 30% of consumer payments in 2017. By 2022, its share had fallen to 18%. The change is also visible at ATMs: Americans made 5.2 billion ATM withdrawals in 2015 but only 3.4 billion in 2024, a decline of about 35%. Meanwhile, the average withdrawal rose from $134 to $210, suggesting people are going for cash less frequently but taking out more when they do.