# Do you use pennies (USA one cent coin)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 26, 2025, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421 "2025-01-26T08:11:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/241 "2025-11-12T20:31:25Z")
I do not quite get the joke? Is the question not why they are still bothering to mint any nickels (also containing copper)? A five-cent Euro coin is mostly steel, for comparison. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/242 "2025-11-12T20:51:21Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I do not quite get the joke? For some weird reason gasoline in the US is nearly always priced with an extra $0.009 tacked on, e.g. $4.199 / gal. But since there are no coins worth less than one cent, that price always gets rounded up to $4.20 if (if you bought just one gallon) if you pay with cash. So the joke is that if the US were to mint 1 mill (one tenth of a cent) coins, then one could pay exactly $4.199. But of course that would be silly because $0.001 is such a trivial amount no one cares. Actually I’m sure the reason it’s priced like that is for the psychology of making the price appear less than it really is. I also wonder if @Saint_Cad purposely chose a price that gets rounded to $4.20 (420 being a marijuana reference). ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/243 "2025-11-12T20:55:38Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > I also wonder if @Saint_Cad purposely chose a price that gets rounded to $4.20 (420 being a marijuana reference). Just because I’m from Colorado … ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/244 "2025-11-12T20:56:15Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > For some weird reason gasoline in the US is nearly always priced with an extra $0.009 tacked on, e.g. $4.199 / gal. There are a few taxes on that but your larger point stands. Taxes probably make lots of transactions have to be rounded. Also, any electronic purchase (credit or debit) will still be priced to the $0.01. The only issue is for cash. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/245 "2025-11-12T21:07:35Z")
And, as we’ve gone around about a hundred times, the penny-to-nickel rounding is on the total of your item(s). So a stop at the grocery with 27 things in your cart will get rounded a couple cents one way or the other. Big deal. That proverbial single pack of gum or newspaper that someone buys at a newsstand at the commuter rail station will also be rounded a couple pennies. Oh Horrors! But most times we buy things, we buy more than one item. The rounding quickly gets lost in the sauce. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/246 "2025-11-12T21:09:50Z")
The article just above says that rounding down will cost consumers millions of dollars a year but unless I am missing something, wouldn’t it even out over time. Guess who the biggest opponent of the change is and who spent the most money lobbying against it? The corporation who supplied the zinc blanks to the Mint. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/247 "2025-11-12T21:28:06Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > The article just above says that rounding down will cost consumers millions of dollars a year but unless I am missing something, wouldn’t it even out over time. You would think so. And if you only bought lots of things, you would be absolutely correct. But sometimes you only buy one thing. And the pricing strategy is to have the price of that “thing” end in a 9. That would round up to 10 cents, and you loose a penny. > [@](#): > > Rounding to the closest nickel will cost consumers about $6 million a year, according to a July study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. That is fairly modest, coming to about five cents each across 133 million American households. Putting it that way, it now almost kinda makes sense. I think my household can afford 5 cents a year. Hell, I’d be willing to pay for 19 of my neighbors - make it an even buck! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/248 "2025-11-12T21:30:14Z")
And even if rounding costs consumers some small amount, some other amount will be saved by not producing and distributing pennies or nickels (which are, remember, produced at a _loss_). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/249 "2025-11-12T21:32:32Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > And the pricing strategy is to have the price of that “thing” end in a 9. That would round up to 10 cents, and you loose a penny. Not really. The price ends in X.X9 cents _before sales tax_. After sales tax it might round in either direction with equal probability. The amount of single-item retail purchases that are also tax-free are rather few and far between. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421/250 "2025-11-12T21:38:50Z")
But you only need… 5 non-taxed thingies over the course of a year to make up the 5 cents they say a family will lose. And some states don’t have tax on groceries, so 10 there makes up for one family in a taxed state. I’m not saying I entirely agree with the study without knowing how they determined it, but thinking of it this way makes it kinda sorta believable. (and, yes, I did think about the tax situation before my post) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-pennies-usa-one-cent-coin/1013421.md?page=12)