The US Bureau of Engraving and Printing issued a record 3.0272 billion individual $100 bills in fiscal year 2012, according to its website here. Production problems with the new $100 bill for 2011 release as reported here resulted in only $72.32 billion in $100 bills being produced in fiscal 2011. The $100 note is the most produced paper currency in the US, averaging $173 billion worth annually for the last five years.
The $100 denomination's print run in fiscal 2012 alone is worth $302.72 billion.
The total production figures since 2008 for all paper money are as follows, averaging $216 billion annually:
2008 $154.2 billion
2009 $219.5 billion
2010 $239.5 billion
2011 $109.7 billion
2012 $358.9 billion.
Since over 90% of the notes replace money which is or has been in circulation, on average about $21 billion annually is actually being added to the currency supply, which is peanuts in a banking system with in excess of $10 trillion in deposits.
It is reported here that total circulating cash presently comes to about $1.175 trillion, so it would take about 6 years to replace all circulating currency at current production levels, perhaps a little longer as some currency effectively disappears because it is destroyed in accidents, sold on the collector market, or hoarded, the latter becoming more popular abroad. Currency in circulation, however, appears to be up about 26% since 2010 when $930 billion was reported to be in circulation. That's an increase of $245 billion in just over two years, which is curious if it's true since one might expect an increase of barely $50 billion over that short a time.
If that is thought to be highly inflationary, however, the figure actually pales in comparison to the real money increase in the country since 2008, namely total credit market debt outstanding, which is up $4.5 trillion to October 2012.
