Pennies

[Mrdeals]

Why doesn’t the US government just scale down production of the penny?

Quick google search reveals over 2 billion are minted each year. So just over the last 1 years that’s 20-30 billion in circulation.

Can’t we just coast off the pennies currently circulating for a while until they all fall victim to storm drains and couches?

[thelurkinghorror]

From today’s Cracked. They partially blame the Zinc Council. Some countries, like Australia and Canada, retired them and prices are rounded to $0.05. They are either going to make lots of them or none of them. If only there was a saying to summarize that!

[Leaffan]

Slight hijack from Canada.

We don’t miss the damned things at all. What a useless form of currency they had become. No one minds that .02 is rounded down, and no one cares that .03 is rounded up. It’s so damned insignificant that it’s not even noticeable.

Soon, (within a few years) we will be minting a new $5 coin. Progress is good. I assume the nickel will be the next to go; who the hell will care?

[Cunctator]

@thelurkinghorror

Some countries, like Australia and Canada, retired them and prices are rounded to $0.05

New Zealand has gone even further. It eliminated its 5 cent piece in 2006. The lowest denomination coin is now the 10 cent piece.

[bob_2]

I think we are heading swiftly towards a no-cash society. I bought a KFC (yeah - I know) last night and paid by waving my card over a reader. No PIN no signature. £9.99 gone from my bank account.

[SmartAlecCat]

I agree with John Green’s Anti-Penny Rant. Get rid of the penny now!

President Obama fielded the question:

“I gotta tell you … I don’t know,” Obama replied. “It’s one of those things where I think people get attached emotionally to the way things have been … We remember our piggy banks and counting up all our pennies and then taking them in and getting a dollar bill or a couple dollars from them, and maybe that’s the reason why people haven’t gotten around to it.”

Obama said while it wouldn’t be a huge savings for the government to discontinue the penny – each zinc and copper coin costs 2.41 cents to produce and distribute, according to the mint – the fact that the government keeps spending money on it when it’s not being used much may mean it is “an example of something we should probably change.”

I haven’t seen much in the way of polling on this, and for all I know, Americans love pennies and will find the president’s position outrageous. If there’s a penny lobby, it’s probably churning out all kinds of press releases this morning.

But Obama’s observation is nevertheless sound – remember Sam Seaborn’s spiel on this from Season Three of “The West Wing”? – especially given how much it costs to make pennies that don’t serve much of a purpose.

That said, every time this comes up, I’m reminded that there’s a compelling flip side to the debate.

I read a piece Eric Wen wrote a while back, noting the economic downsides, and it stuck with me:

A 2001 economic analysis by Penn State’s Raymond Lombra found that a post-penny economy – in which we round to the nearest nickel – would probably hurt the poor disproportionately. In theory, rounding would balance itself out over time – with some transactions rounding up and others rounding down. Lombra’s simulations, however, which were based on the price book of a major retail chain, found that between 60 and 93 percent of transactions would round up, costing consumers nearly $600 million a year. Because the poor tend to use cash more often [and only cash transactions would be subject to rounding], they would shoulder most of that burden.

It’s a debate worth having, but keep these details in mind.

[Derleth]

@bob_2

I bought a KFC (yeah - I know) last night

What, you bought a whole restaurant?

[DCnDC]

@Derleth

What, you bought a whole restaurant?

For 10 pounds!

[boffking]

@Derleth

What, you bought a whole restaurant?

I congratulate bob++ on his new franchise.

[misling]

I can see why the majority of rounding would be ‘up’, because of the widespread practice of pricing things $xx.99

I wouldn’t mind though, even if stuff was generally rounded up.

[jz78817]

can we also shit or get off the pot about the dollar bill? start minting $1 coins and stop printing $1 bills. our failure to do the latter is why “people don’t like dollar coins.”

[Dewey_Finn]

@bob_2

I think we are heading swiftly towards a no-cash society. I bought a KFC (yeah - I know) last night and paid by waving my card over a reader. No PIN no signature. £9.99 gone from my bank account.

Here in the US, when I use my credit card, purchases for under $25 often do not require a signature and at my supermarket, purchases under $50 don’t require one.

[Honey]

@jz78817

can we also shit or get off the pot about the dollar bill? start minting $1 coins and stop printing $1 bills. our failure to do the latter is why “people don’t like dollar coins.”

Dollar coins are too heavy. I can easily carry a pocket full of dollar bills, not so for dollar coins.

[Leaffan]

@Honey

Dollar coins are too heavy. I can easily carry a pocket full of dollar bills, not so for dollar coins.

So, don’t carry them; spend them. Problem solved.

[Bullitt]

Dollar coins are annoying.

[california_jobcase]

If the U.S. were to get rid of the one cent coin (pedantic nitpick: the U.S. has never minted pennies), not a single price would have to change. Just the total of all items purchased at one time would have to be rounded to the nearest five cents. Think groceries or gasoline here- usually, multiple items or gallons are bought.

[gazpacho]

We should probably get rid of nickles and dimes while we were at it. The last time the US retired a coin was in1857 when we got rid of the half cent. It had an equivalent purchasing power of about 12 cents in today’s money.

[Si_Amigo]

@boffking

I congratulate bob++ on his new franchise.

Paid too much IMHO.

[velomont]

As others have mentioned we, in Canada, got rid of the penny a couple of years ago. The process was to cease production but to still accept them so I was worried that the stupid things would linger in the system for a long time. Fortunately that didn’t happen and they disappeared quite rapidly.

And the Loony (our dollar coin)? No problem IMO, and the same with the Twoony (our two dollar coin, however it’s spelled). I would be happy if the nickel and dime were scrapped and the five dollar bill replaced with a coin.

[chappachula]

@Si_Amigo

Paid too much IMHO.

But without the pennies, it would have cost him even more…
rounded up to an even 10.00