# When will the US mint stop making pennies?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 5, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685 "2011-10-05T14:35:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/1 "2011-10-05T14:35:36Z")
[FONT=Calibri]There are two possible scenarios. [/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri]Scenario #1:
Congress stops acting like a bunch of idiots (unlikely) and finally get rid of it.
Scenario #2: (More likely)
Businesses stop using them and the customers don’t care. This means that businesses will stop asking for pennies from Banks. If banks only receive pennies and do not give pennies to businesses, then the pennies start to mound up in banks and at the mint. The mint will make fewer of them. As fewer are made, fewer are desired. The spiral continues until the mint just quits.
Just in case anyone is interested, there is a Wikipedia page that addresses the pennies argument [[COLOR=blue]here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_eliminate_the_penny_in_the_United_States#Arguments_for_elimination). They handle the issues well and note the total uselessness of the coin.[/COLOR]
Please don’t bring out the tired old reasons for keeping the penny until you read the wikipedia page. [/FONT]
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### Author:  [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/2 "2011-10-05T14:58:45Z")
For that matter, when will the mint stop printing one dollar bills?
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/3 "2011-10-05T15:10:27Z")
Businesses have no interest in getting rid of the penny. One or two cent increases in price can be profitable with little risk of customers switching to another brand.
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/4 "2011-10-05T15:19:06Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#):
>
> For that matter, when will the mint stop printing one dollar bills?
I wish we had more use of the dollar coin, and I wish we had a $5 coin.
I like coins.
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### Author:  [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/5 "2011-10-05T15:19:32Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Businesses have no interest in getting rid of the penny. One or two cent increases in price can be profitable with little risk of customers switching to another brand.
I don’t follow. Is it not the store who sets the prices? If the penny was to go away, the store would either round up or down the price on the total customer balance. Note, this does not mean that it always screws the consumer. See wikipedia page for related study.
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### Author:  [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/6 "2011-10-05T15:21:19Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#):
>
> For that matter, when will the mint stop printing one dollar bills?
Nitpick: The mint makes coints, the bureau of engraving and printing makes bills.
I agree, we should have coinage that means something. Dollar coins should be used and dollar bill eliminated.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/7 "2011-10-05T15:23:34Z")
Meanwhile, my argument for reintroduction of the half penny is largely ignored. ☹
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/8 "2011-10-05T15:29:42Z")
> [@Hermitian](#):
>
> I don’t follow. Is it not the store who sets the prices? If the penny was to go away, the store would either round up or down the price on the total customer balance. Note, this does not mean that it always screws the consumer. See wikipedia page for related study.
Stores use penny increases to make it harder for consumers to compare prices with other stores. Few shoppers walk around with calculators, so it’s easy for stores to decrease a featured advertised product by a nickel or a dime, while more than make up for it by increasing the price of some of the _un_advertised but commonly shopped for products by a penny or three.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/9 "2011-10-05T15:30:04Z")
> [@Hermitian](#):
>
> I don’t follow. Is it not the store who sets the prices? If the penny was to go away, the store would either round up or down the price on the total customer balance. Note, this does not mean that it always screws the consumer. See wikipedia page for related study.
Plus people who use credit or debit cards, which must be the the vast majority, can still be charged to the penny.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/10 "2011-10-05T15:39:15Z")
This seems to be more of an IMHO discussion than a debate, even with the few conflicting opinions.
Off you go.
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### Author:  [@pope\_hentai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pope_hentai)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/11 "2011-10-05T17:02:32Z")
> [@Hermitian](#):
>
> Nitpick: The mint makes coints, the bureau of engraving and printing makes bills.
>
> I agree, we should have coinage that means something. Dollar coins should be used and dollar bill eliminated.
and im sure every waiter/waitress right now wishes to punch you in the face for that. the weight difference between 70 bucks worth of ones and 70 bucks worth of dollar coins isnt a neglegible difference.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/12 "2011-10-05T17:04:32Z")
Eventually, a loaf of bread will cost $35 billion, if you extend the rate of inflation out however many centuries. Of course, most of the digits will be (for all intents and purposes) meaningless.
Really, if the lowest digit of fiat money has become pointless, the answer is to shift everything to the right one place. There’s no value in having a wasted space on the right of a price. Removing the penny is a short-term solution, and eventually you’ll just re-introduce it when you do shift the currency by one (or however many) decimal places.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/13 "2011-10-05T17:14:59Z")
I spent six months in Switzerland in 1967 and they had largely stopped using their smallest coin (called the Rappen). Even if the items were labeled in amounts not divisible by 5 the totals were automatically rounded up or down. With the exception of one dept. store that had automatic change machines. So if your bill was 13Fr47 and you gave the cashier a 20Fr bill, she pressed a button and out came a 5Fr coin, a 1Fr coin, a 50Rp coin a 2Rp coin and a 1Rp coin.
In 1970-71, I lived there again for over a year and the 1 and 2 Rappen coins were (literally) history. The Fr was worth about 23¢ in those days probably twice what a dollar is worth today.
Two days ago, I had no change (left my change purse home) and I bought something that cost $2.01. I paid with a $5 bill, expecting to get $3 in change. No, I got $2.99 exactly. Amazing. This was at Staples, incidentally. (What can you buy at Staples that comes to $2.01 with tax? A bottle of Wite-Out.)
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/14 "2011-10-05T17:18:06Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> Eventually, a loaf of bread will cost $35 billion, if you extend the rate of inflation out however many centuries. Of course, most of the digits will be (for all intents and purposes) meaningless.
>
> Really, if the lowest digit of fiat money has become pointless, the answer is to shift everything to the right one place. There’s no value in having a wasted space on the right of a price. Removing the penny is a short-term solution, and eventually you’ll just re-introduce it when you do shift the currency by one (or however many) decimal places.
People got along just fine when the US dollar was worth 50 times what it is now, making one of their pennies worth more than a quarter is worth today. People didn’t seem to be clamoring for smaller change then.
Apparently there was a US half-penny made at one time. [Half cent (United States coin) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_cent_%28United_States_coin%29)
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/15 "2011-10-05T17:29:31Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> Eventually, a loaf of bread will cost $35 billion
What you are not mentioning (intentionally?) is that it will be very, very good bread.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/16 "2011-10-05T17:40:23Z")
I’ve been for getting rid of the penny for awhile, but I became a total convert when I got my change from Taco Bell and it was missing one penny and I realized that I didn’t really care. Then I wondered if the cashier was doing this on purpose, and calculated that over the course of his shift he could make a whopping dollar or two by shortchanging pennies at the very most (most likely less)! Big whoop! If it’s not even worthwhile to steal pennies, then get rid of it posthaste.
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Stores use penny increases to make it harder for consumers to compare prices with other stores. Few shoppers walk around with calculators, so it’s easy for stores to decrease a featured advertised product by a nickel or a dime, while more than make up for it by increasing the price of some of the _un_advertised but commonly shopped for products by a penny or three.
This thread is about the _mint_ no longer making _pennies_. That does not mean that prices will no longer be allowed to be demarcated in pennies (see: Gallons of Gas, 9/10 cents charge on.)
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/17 "2011-10-05T17:44:21Z")
> [@Ludovic](#):
>
> If you’re _driving_ somewhere just to save a penny or two, you’re wasting more gas by driving all over the place.
And yet people do, and the gas station owners damn well know it and take advantage of it.
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### Author:  [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/18 "2011-10-05T17:46:31Z")
> [@pope\_hentai](#):
>
> and im sure every waiter/waitress right now wishes to punch you in the face for that. the weight difference between 70 bucks worth of ones and 70 bucks worth of dollar coins isnt a neglegible difference.
Give me a break. I’d be interested to know what restaurant has the waitstaff walking around with $70 in singles.
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### Author:  [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/19 "2011-10-05T17:47:42Z")
Yesterday I bought a donut for $2.04. I handed the lady three dollar bills and she handed one back to me saying “I think I have four cents around here somewhere.”
So apparently four pennies is now a rounding error.
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### Author:  [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-us-mint-stop-making-pennies/598685/20 "2011-10-05T17:52:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> And yet people do, and the gas station owners damn well know it and take advantage of it.
So what. Why is consumers being stupid a valid argument here?
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