How much longer will we have pennies?
Proofmorgan
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Growing up along the Canadian Border and still having family there, there was much debate when Canada decided to retire the penny. It's been over 10 years (wow time flies) since Canada announced that decision and I'm sure this topic was covered heavily around that time on this forum so I apologize if this is a redundant post to some.
So....with all the inflation in the past decade, when will the US pull the plug on the penny? Or will they ever?
My opinion is that Canada was forward-thinking at the time. My assumption is that the cost of production coupled with the inefficiency of transactions requiring a one cent denomination in our current financial state; a penny must be a considerable net negative. The same could be said about all cash, I'm sure, but that's a separate discussion.
Thoughts?
Comments
Hopefully they get rid of them quickly. They are worthless and not worth the cost of minting them.
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
You mean the dollars are worthless. The cost of making cents and nickels has not gone up, the value of the dollar has gone down. Thereby the value of cents has actually increased since they at least have the melt value of zinc.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Agree. Continue to make them for collectors and dealers in the original copper composition. The mint can sell them by the roll to collectors and dealers and also include them in the annual mint sets.
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"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
When the zinc and planchet manufacturing lobby stops contributing to congress.
When politicians stop worrying about how the press would spin the story to make it sound like eliminating the cent is a scheme by big business to round all cash transactions up to the nearest nickel, or when the public gets smart enough to realize that that story is BS. So probably never.
Edited to ask, is there really a planchet manufacturing lobby?
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I visited Australia, they do two things right. 1) they round all transactions to the closest $0.05 and the price on the shop shelf already has tax baked into it. 2) The item says $5, its exactly $5 no change at all.
We really need to rethink our money and tax systems.
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
I look forward to the complaints about the cost of those rolls.
I was in Italy in 1983. They had long eliminated anything under 25 L.
You can rest assured that if there is money to be made, there is a lobby supporting it. Given all the money wasted by the federal government, this is just a rounding error, and really does not mean anything one way or the other.
That said, if this was a private undertaking, nickels and cents would have gone away as soon as it became uneconomic to produce them. The market would certainly adjust to rounding cash transactions, not merely to the nearest nickel, but to the nearest dime, quarter, whatever.
But, people are set in their ways, and someone IS making money from the wasteful practice of producing coinage that costs more to produce than its value as an asset on the books of the Treasury, so it continues. Indefinitely. Until such time as cash goes away altogether, which likely will happen at some point in the future when the government figures out how to harness the power of the blockchain.
It's called VAT (Value Added Tax). It is generally applied everywhere along the chain as value is added to a product or service. At the end of the line it gets added to the retail price and VAT often constitutes 15 to 20% of the retail price. VAT has a place in the tax discussion, but my concern is that we'd end up with both a VAT and a sales tax.
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Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
We don't have pennies now - we have cents.
I agree with Ben. Long live the penny!
The mint strikes cents because there is a demand for them. If people stopped accepting them back in change and/or stores rounded down totals to eliminate the need for cents then the demand would plummet. No law is needed - it can be done right now. Why don't stores voluntarily round down to the closest nickel, or dime, for that matter? 🤔
As for the rounding issue, if people and stores were forced to round, it would not be in favor of the customer. I lived through the conversion to the euro in Europe, and stores needed to round the new prices in euro to make them nice round numbers. Businesses never rounded down, only up.
Producing them creates the illusion of stable currency.
I'm sure with how ingrained the 99 cent price advertising is in our culture, that contributes to the bulk of the "demand". I'm sure there is plenty of study information to support how the lack of rounding contributes to the likelihood of a consumer purchase.
Some places I shop have stopped using pennies. It all seems to work out about even in the end.
I agree with this. The manufacturing cost of the penny doesn’t matter. But ending the penny (or cent) matters a lot to people’s perceptions.
But what will jam my garbage disposal, and rattle in my vacuum?
"Charities need pennies. Many small charities depend on penny drives to bring in donations. People think nothing of pouring out their old penny jars to support these drives, but they won't part with nickels so easily."
"Pennies are sentimental. The fact is that Americans love their pennies and hate to change things. We've always had pennies and therefore still should have pennies, according to this thinking. Americans are traditionalists, and the Lincoln Cent is the epitome of modern-day circulating coin tradition."
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
I am still bitter about the elimination of the half cent.
Seated Dollar Collection
They’ll be finding them around my house forever.
Back before the change from mostly copper to mostly zinc there was furious lobbying by the copper mining companies to keep this outlet (and demand) for their product. They held off the change for many years.
If there was an attempt to just eliminate the cent now, as should happen, the zinc mining companies would do the exact same thing. I would bet you that they are already doing it.
It would take a bipartisan bill to eliminate the cent, and in the current political climate I doubt if you could get Congress to agree that it would be nice to go out for ice cream!
I thought the "rounding" to the nearest nickel would occur only on the
final amount. If you purchase groceries , the rounding would occur with
the final amount $45.33, round up to $45.35. Not on each individual item
being purchased.
In theory, yes. But stores can just round down to the nearest nickel now. Nothing is stopping them.
The 3c and 5c nickel coins were created to appease the nickel lobby when nickel was eliminated from the cent in 1864.
Exactly!
With electronic payments in place rounding less likely now to take place. No point.
Spring/ Summer emptied change from cupholder in vehicle accumulated over years. No change present after 6 months and cannot recall last time used cash resulting in change.
Ok fine, but that doesn’t change the fact that cents are useless. If you use electronic payment you can pay exact change but cash means it’s rounded up to the nearest .05, that work?
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We have never had pennies. We have cents.
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You missed the point so here it is. Cash and all change are pointless. That is the bigger picture.
Retail doesn’t want it. Banks don’t neither do more and more people.
Got it?
We have pennies. Coin people have cents.
Well, they've certainly got a strange way of showing it, since they order billions every year.
Once again, retail can eliminate the cent right now by rounding down all totals at the cash register.
When Pennsylvania avenue is paved in gold. And until then, the most of us are pinching pennies, #@&$#*&$@!!! Got it ?
I come from part Dutch stock. I live in an area full of small Dutch towns. Trust me. We will have the cent as long as their are Dutch people and someone owes them one! James
Stoping the cent would signal inflation
Can't clue in the peasants...
maybe 20, at which point the next generation will more geared to plastic.
There that should buy them another 10 years
Kentucky horse racing tracks recently started paying off to the nearest cent(penny). For example:All along if the payoff was $3.43 it was rounded down to $3.40 with the track keeping the .03. Now one is paid the full $3.43. The cents are now rightfully given back to the bettor. So the track will need those cents. And casinos still need the cents when one cashes out their vouchers from the slot machines. They are not rounded to the nearest nickel.
2 points. 1) Where would we put old Abe Lincoln? 2) And that would be one less source to search for error coins. Not to mention the parking lots would miss them greatly.
Put Abe Lincoln on the $20, Jackson doesn't want to be there.
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
This retailer wants it and will continue to accept it as long as it is legal tender. Believe that.
The complainers are mostly too lazy to learn basic math and how to make change
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
We could phase out pennies right now without an act of congress. Simply make it legal to melt them down, don't issue them for circulation and businesses themselves round to the nearest penny and presto. I get why the penny should continue to circulate though. I just think they can keep the current penny as a circulating design and then pursue legislation to revive the copper large cent. You could have a lincoln large cent every year and give the mint broad authority to create any other large cent they want like they have with gold and platinum cons. Programs like American Innovation or Youth Sports would be perfect for additional large cents. Then you could go back to a static design for Quarters etc.
Y’all realize he’s already on the $5 right?
Oh that's right, isn't he lol
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
Most coinage legislation these days passes with unanimous consent.
I toss the pennies/cents onto busy parking lots on my way out with the faint hope that they may eventually inspire a new generation of collectors. ;-). At a minimum, they might offer a rush of hope for someone- thinking they have discovered a rare and valuable mint error. Or worse yet, someone could be injured bending over to pick them up!
That is, if I haven’t already rounded up my purchase and donated the difference to whatever charity has set up shop there.
(just kidding folks)
In all truth though, I did stop to pick up a quarter and some fallen cents in our local grocery parking lot while a couple of ladies were chatting nearby and caught my eye, laughing, they said they had been watching and wondering if anyone would pick them up. Yes, shameless, I know!
We all had a good laugh out of it.
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I don't want pennies ever.
What I want is sweetend condensed eggnog.
Wouldn't the elimination of the zinc cent be great for the hobby (setting aside errors)? Then we could pretend that they're valuable.
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
I use them all the time at my 4th & 5th grade basketball practices.
The cost of producing cents and five cent coins exceeds their face value - as early as 2006 the US mint was investigating alternative metals but never went anywhere. The Jarden Metals company produces the copper plated zinc blanks and is a lobbyist organisation with donations to congressional races.
Similarly producing one dollar bills is expensive considering they only have about a 9 month lifespan before they are retired. A dollar coin can last on average 25 years in circulation. Attempts to circulate dollar coins go back to the late 1970's - but then again there is Crane and Co banknote paper manufacturing that again is lobbying congress.
One difference betwixt the US Mint and the Royal Canadian mint is that the latter is not subject to legislative inaction like the US mint is. The RCM is a crown corporation that has to be self sustaining - so they can eliminate the cent coin and change the metal in their coinage to rolled steel without any inaction from parliament.
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Or, imagine what would happen if the U.S. Mint reduced cent production by 90% every year.
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