The US really might stop producing pennies

25 thoughts on “The US really might stop producing pennies”

1. Please.Report

2. So, no more 1.99 shops?Report

   1. Maybe putting a woman on the penny would save it?Report

   2. Nope, they’ll be $1.95 shops, or $2.00 shops.

      I’ve always hated the implicit dishonesty in the $9.99 or $299 price, allowing the vendor to claim a price under $X by the faintest percent. Does it truly make a huge difference is sales if the item is priced at $9.99 vs $10.00? Are people really that dumb?Report

      1. Sugar-free Tic-Tacs are basically 100% sugar. The label admits it if you know how to read it. People are capable of thinking. But they don’t.Report

3. So, when we get taxed on a purchase, will the gov’t round down, saving us the few cents? Or will it round up, gaining the few cents for itself?Report

   1. Here, in Canuckistan, where we got rid of pennies, it’s not rounded when you pay with debit or credit and if you pay with cash, it’s rounded up or down to the nearest five cent increment. It goes both ways.Report

      1. OK, that sounds sensible. As long as cash is king.Report

         1. From what I have read both sides benefit whichever way you round, in the “time is money” sense. Vendors benefit even if you always round down in cash purchases.Report

         2. On credit or debit card purchases the price remains rounded to the nearest cent as it has always been. So you can exploit the system to make HUGE BANK by waiting to see the total, and then pay with cash for totals that end in 1, 2, 6, or 7 cents.Report

4. As long as we get to keep our shillings and guineas.Report

5. This wouldn’t be a problem if the us hadn’t devalued it’s currency through inflation and “structural easing”.Report

   1. The US eliminated the half cent more than a century before Bretton Woods was ended.Report

      1. When Canada finally ditched the penny, I looked up the inflation-corrected value of a penny at the time the US got rid of their half-cent – I think it was about 25 modern cents.

         So that change in modern terms would be equivalent to ditching the dime, and letting the quarter be the smallest denomination in circulation. Which seems about right to me, honestly.Report

         1. I support going by the Ramen Index. The lowest denomination ought to be whatever a cheap pack of Ramen costs.Report

            1. The Vending Machine index is superior. Almost all VMs accept dollar coins but not pennies, and the bill acceptors will reject about 10 to 20% of all dollar notes you try to use due to age and wear (of the bills). So ditch both the penny and dollar bill.Report

               1. I endorse this standard and suggest that we start sharpening our knives for the day when nickels are no longer widely accepted.Report

                  1. not gonna happen any time soon. A system of currency demands a common factor. So you can get rid of pennies because everything is divisible by five cents, but you can’t get rid of nickels without also getting rid of dimes or quarters, because you can’t make change for a quarter with dimes.Report

                  2. You’d likely replace a quarter with a quinter.Report

                  3. This is an excellent reason to kill the dime at the same time.Report

         2. While I definitely think there is no need to keep nickels around, I am kind of fond of dimes.

            Mostly that’s just because the weight/face value ratio is the same for dimes and quarters, so a given value of change in dimes and quarters will weigh your pocket down by the same amount regardless of the ratio of the two coin types. Which just seems right somehow.Report

6. I always hate the “it costs more than a penny to make a penny” thing. It’s dumb and immaterial. It’s fiat currency. It’s value doesn’t like in the value of it’s component materials.

   Sorry, just my kvetching.Report

   1. @morat20

      One source of government revenue is seigniorage – the creation of money as a revenue source. This is nowhere near as large a revenue source as tax, but it is a revenue source nonetheless.

      That pennies have a negative seigniorage value means that the government has to make up that revenue elsewhere, and it really is absurd to make something that is worth less than the materials that make it up.Report

      1. The gov’t CAN afford it.Report

      2. If a penny was spent once then exhausted, I’d agree.

         Which might make it actually apply to the penny, since it ends up right back in banks rather than circulating.

         But take the almighty dollar. It might get spent a hundred times. If it cost a dollar fifty to make, it still got circulated like a hundred dollars — even if it cost more to make than it’s worth.Report

Comments are closed.