The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/12/business/last-penny-minted

by andrewl • 8 months ago

735 918 8 months ago

hrimfaxi2• 8 months ago

I watched a video on the demise of the penny and its predicament was so succinctly explained: everyone gets pennies as change but few carry them around let alone spend them, so we are stuck producing ever more. One news outlet even did an "experiment" where they threw hundreds of pennies on the ground in a city on a busy morning and not one person stopped to pick any up.

basscomm7• 8 months ago

everyone gets pennies as change but few carry them around let alone spend them

It's not just pennies, it's all coins. In a former life I worked in retail and almost nobody would fish around in their pockets for exact (or even near) change. They'd always hand me bills for their purchase even if they had just completed a transaction and had the coins in their pocket. That was in the 90's, and I still see it happening today, even though I'm no longer in the retail world.

Retric4• 8 months ago

I’d regularly use quarters in vending machines, but not waste time during a retail transaction.

triceratops• 8 months ago

That's incredibly bizarre. If I have coins my first instinct is to spend them ASAP so I don't have to carry them around.

expedition322• 8 months ago

Nowadays I pay for everything with my phone but back in the day I too hated using coins. Having to calculate and fish out coins? Ain't nobody got time for that.

zahlman24• 8 months ago

I pay exact change whenever I can.

And on the occasions where I can only make (exact change + simple amount), I often get deer-in-headlights looks from cashiers who can't do mental arithmetic and apparently haven't learned how to get the machine to understand payments of more than one physical bill or coin.

forinti2• 8 months ago

I like using coins because I'm always looking for commemorative coins. It's an interesting investment: you can immediately double or triple your money. Unfortunately, you rarely find them.

I also keep the obvious fakes.

jwrallie• 8 months ago

People are very lazy to do basic math. I always minimize the coins I am carrying by doing math on my head so that the combined value of a certain coin never exceeds the amount of the next available coin/bill, that way I never exceed the carrying capacity of my wallet.

Most people I know just pocket everything and put on a box at home for undetermined time.

mooreds2• 8 months ago

I remember moving out of a place (decades ago). I was the last roommate out, and so was stuck with some of the cleanup (wanted to get that deposit back!).

One of the things we had was a ton of pennies (no idea why). I had no room in my car, so I spend a few minutes late at night flinging pennies out onto the sidewalk after a long day of cleaning the place.

dylan6042• 8 months ago

Would it not have been better/easier for all involved to have just set a container of all the pennies on the street on your way out? If someone really could use them, you're kind of a dick for making them pick them up one at a time, but if they were all together...

kristopolous• 8 months ago

I actually do that for numismatic reasons now. After today they will only increase in scarcity.

Not that I imagine they'll ever be valuable mind you... I should really just go and get $5 worth somewhere. That would satiate my desires

dmd2• 8 months ago

not one person stopped to pick any up.

Isn't that the old joke about the economist?

gniv• 8 months ago

Random anecdote: I go to a boulangerie almost daily (as one does here in France). There is one close to me that started charging 12 centimes for slicing the bread. I got annoyed with this and nowadays make a point to take lots of small change from the coin jar and use it. They don't seem to mind.

m4632• 8 months ago

I use quarters in parking meters sometimes.

SkyPuncher6• 8 months ago

Only place I've ever noticed them is the $0.01 pony ride that's been sitting at my grocery store for 30 years.

Even they've gotten the hint and simply leave a tray of pennies next to it so people can actually use it.

cartoonworld• 8 months ago

They’re probably doing that so your kid or some kid can use it and leave the penny tray because they aren’t trying to make money off of it anymore.

It’s just for fun, sounds like a nice gesture.

MarkLowenstein2• 8 months ago

I always pick them up. Every penny buys enough pasta to keep you alive for another 15 minutes. So in case I ever go broke, I've staved off my eventual starvation by 15 minutes.

comradesmith• 8 months ago

I like this perspective :)

hrimfaxi2• 8 months ago

How did you arrive at this conclusion?

bryanlarsen2• 8 months ago

Many countries eliminated their pennies without chaos or unfair burdens on shopkeepers. In Canada, the process was widely popular after the fact even though newspaper articles prior to the elimination intimated it wouldn't be due to their "both sides" style of reporting.

It's indicative of the current US administration that they managed to screw this up despite many examples world wide of how to do it properly.

terminalshort6• 8 months ago

If you believe this is going to cause chaos or significant burdens on merchants I have got a bridge to sell you (but I don't take pennies). This quote tells you all you need to know.

The government’s phasing out of the penny has been “a bit chaotic,” said Mark Weller, executive director of Americans for Common Cents. The pro-penny group is funded primarily by Artazn, the company that provides the blanks used to make pennies.

zahlman24• 8 months ago

The same thing happened many years ago with the same company (previously called Jarden Zinc).

Americans for Common Cents is a non-profit lobbying group dedicated to the protection of the one-cent coin. The group is primarily interested in preserving the penny for economic and historical reasons. In 2012, Executive Director Mark Weller was paid $340,000 by Jarden Zinc to discuss issues relating to minting with members of Congress and the US Mint.[41] Weller has acknowledged this funding, saying that “We make no secret that one of our major sponsors is a company that makes the zinc ‘blanks’ for pennies."[42] Weller has testified on multiple occasions before Congress. In 2020 Weller testified that the use of cash protects privacy, provides economic stability and "is a public good" that should not be replaced by mobile money.[43]

quickthrowman• 8 months ago

Unfair burden?? I think you’re blowing this out of proportion..

Credit card fees are 2-4%. Rounding to the nearest nickel costs at most $0.02 (1,2 round to 0; 3,4 round to 5)

It is cheaper for the merchant to round to the nearest nickel for any transaction of one dollar or more than it is to pay CC merchant fees.

bryanlarsen2• 8 months ago

It costs on average 2 cents because without legislative authority to round to closest the retailer must round down and eat up to 4 cents of difference.

Cash costs retailers money too. Safely transporting it to the bank, et cetera. For many, cash is more expensive than credit cards.

zahlman24• 8 months ago

even though newspaper articles prior to the elimination intimated it wouldn't be due to their "both sides" style of reporting.

No idea what you're talking about here. This isn't a left-vs-right issue, and journalism gave the concerns approximately the attention they merited.

It's indicative of the current US administration that they managed to screw this up despite many examples world wide of how to do it properly.

No, it's indicative of problems uniquely caused by existing American governance and law. When we did it, we didn't have an issue analogous to the one with SNAP payments described throughout the thread, because our welfare programs don't work that way and our legal code isn't designed to enable the same kind of future pedantry. Besides which, the Biden and Obama administrations (and others before them) didn't even attempt this as far as I'm aware, despite that the US penny being costly for quite some time. (As far as I can tell, the current cost is mostly not due to the cost of the base metal, which is almost all zinc since 1982. Checking commodity prices and doing some back of the envelope math, switching back to copper would cost them an additional two cents per penny.)

Analemma_• 8 months ago

Honestly nickels and dimes, and maybe even quarters, should go too. It's ridiculous that we don't have $1 and $2 coins in widespread circulation in the US (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it).

JohnFen8• 8 months ago

I'd mourn the loss of the quarter. I use those quite often.

(we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it)

Because they keep designing it in the stupidest way, making it easy to confuse with a quarter. I don't know why they do that.

That said, I do prefer paper $1 bills over coins. Paper is lighter and easier to carry. But I'd only slightly grumble if we replaced it with a reasonable coin.

terminalshort6• 8 months ago

It's a completely different color than a quarter.

basscomm7• 8 months ago

That said, I do prefer paper $1 bills over coins. Paper is lighter and easier to carry.

Sure, but how many $1 bills do you typically carry around? If it's more than four, then you can trade them in for a $5 bill just about anywhere.

panzagl• 8 months ago

Bring back the Eisenhower dollar!

basscomm7• 8 months ago

We also have a $2 bill that nobody uses for whatever reason.

I never understood the objections to the $1 coin, especially after the redesign to make it more distinct from a quarter. $1 coins are great for buying stuff out of vending machines since you don't have to fight with a dodgy bill acceptor or a mangled bill.

devmor• 8 months ago

We also have a $2 bill that nobody uses for whatever reason.

It’s because retailers wont accept them - they think they’re counterfeit because no one uses them. A catch-22 situation, really.

orangecat2• 8 months ago

Yeah. My proposal would be to have 10 cent, 50 cent, and $1 coins (rounding everything to the nearest 10 cents), with $2 the smallest bill. And probably you could drop the $5 bill at that point.

silisili• 8 months ago

My only real objection I guess, and the reason I don't carry change of any sort, is because it's constantly falling out of my pockets. I'm rather tall, so many seating positions put my knees higher than my waist, which I think contributes to that.

Further, since I don't have enough pockets to have a dedicated change pocket, it's always getting caught up in my keys and/or pocket knife.

Nobody really gave us training on this stuff, do other countries use a coin purse or some such?

Lastly, they're just comparatively heavy.

I just carry cash around in either a clip or a "front pocket wallet" I think they're called, and it seems more convenient all around.

acheron• 8 months ago

This was a whole thing in the 70s. There was a 3 step plan:

1) Bring back the $2 bill (it had not been printed for a decade+)

2) Redesign the $1 coin (Eisenhowers being too big and heavy)

3) Stop printing $1 bills

Unfortunately they never got to step 3, which made 1 and 2 pointless, and here we are.

nicole_express• 8 months ago

Honestly I'd rather just not have coins at that point, rather than try to push $1 and $2 coins. Then I can just carry my wallet for bills and not have to worry about keeping track of coins separately.

Gotta do something to make the $2 bill popular though, no idea how.

Brendinooo• 8 months ago

Nickels and dimes certainly have predecent. When the US killed the half-penny in 1857, it had a purchasing power of somewhere around 19 cents from 2024.

delecti7• 8 months ago

Quarters might be premature, but the half-cent was discontinued when it was worth a (modern equivalent) of $0.12-17. Even 20-30 years ago, when I was just starting to interact with money enough to have an opinion, I thought it was a hassle to deal with anything smaller than a quarter. The same logic behind getting rid of pennies (they cost more to make than the face value) also supports doing at least nickels.

JohnFen8• 8 months ago

The same logic behind getting rid of pennies (they cost more to make than the face value)

I've honestly never understood why this is a valid reason to object to the coin. Coins aren't used only once, so that they cost most to make than their face value doesn't seem very important, unless the differential is much, much larger than it actually is.

mkehrt2• 8 months ago

Sorry Europe and Canada, $1 and $2 coins are just absolutely terrible. I never want to have to think about where my change is. Bills are much lighter than coins and stack with the rest of the bills.

ecshafer• 8 months ago

I want to get rid of bills and move to only coins. We can carry coin pouches and act like a medieval/fantasy novel character.

emodendroket5• 8 months ago

When I was in Japan everything was all-cash and the smallest bill was the equivalent of a $10, with equivalents to $1 and $5 coins being in common circulation. Most wallets they sold/people had had a coin pocket to account for this.

CGMthrowaway• 8 months ago

Used to use dollar coins at toll booths all the time. That was before ez pass

BenoitEssiambre• 8 months ago

At least nickels should go so we can always round by one digit.

MrHeather• 8 months ago

But with 20 million customers a year, and 17% of them paying with cash, the policy will eventually cost Kwik Trip a couple of million dollars a year, McHugh said.

If we figure two-fifths of cash transactions need to be rounded up and the store is losing an average of 1.5 cents each time, their expected losses would be around $2,000, yeah?

patch_collector• 8 months ago

20m customers * 17% * 4 cents * 'x' transactions per customer = $136,000 * x

I suppose this makes some sense. In a worst case situation, if every customer makes 10-20 transactions per year, and they always round down the maximum possible amount, they would lose millions per year.

tengbretson• 8 months ago

In many parts of Wisconsin the value of `x` could very easily be 100+, so I'd say this checks out.

pavel_lishin3• 8 months ago

If we make the maximally pessimistic assumption that every cash transaction would require rounding down four cents, that's 68,000 customers per year times four cents, which is $136,000 per year.

A more reasonable assumption that half of transactions require rounding down cuts that in half, I suppose.

delecti7• 8 months ago

Kwik Trip, a family-owned convenience store chain that operates in the Midwest, decided to round down cash purchases in stores where it hasn’t been able to find pennies.

They're rounding all cash transactions down to the nearest nickel, so an average of 2 cents per transaction, 3.4 million customers, gives me $68,000 assuming each "customer" makes a single transaction per year. If they mean that there are 20 million unique customers, not 20m transactions, then the a long tail of customers who make frequent small transactions in cash could make their claim check out.

velcrovan• 8 months ago

Whatever the total ends up being, it's basically a marketing expense that they're electing to make. Probably they do it for a year and then switch to rounding to the nearest nickel, which is what everyone else will be doing.

giantg24• 8 months ago

I would bet they have a way to write it off.

Edit: why disagree? Can't the write it off as a loss, uncollected account, or promotional? Maybe even goodwill

pants2• 8 months ago

Certianly the costs in employee time making change in pennies and stocking / transporting / changing pennies is way higher

smelendez• 8 months ago

They must mean unique customers, not customer transactions.

They have about 878 stores, according to Wikipedia, so if it was transactions, each store would only see about 62 transactions per day, which is way too low.

terminalshort6• 8 months ago

Sure. But multiply by whatever number you want and it is still the same percentage of revenue.

terminalshort6• 8 months ago

I get $20,400 (20m * 17% * 40% * 0.015). But that's still nothing for a company that does 20 million POS transactions a year.

jermaustin1• 8 months ago

It's cheaper than the credit card fees, that's for sure.

pessimizer• 8 months ago

What's more contemptible: that CNN refused to spend the 30 seconds that it would take to do the math; or that it interviewed a "spokesman" that also didn't spend 30 seconds to do the math, and was sure that nobody would check?

This is the kind of article that should be written by AI (or not written, really.) If you completely fictionalized the empty interviews, nothing would be lost.

Maybe the "spokesman" has been told to angle for a government subsidy for the inconvenience of losing pennies? And from a gas station, which add that goofy fraction of a cent at the end of their pricing.

paxys2• 8 months ago

20 million customers doesn't mean 20 million transactions. Considering we are talking about a convenience store I'm sure a large chunk of their customers visit every day, some probably multiple times a day.

Assuming 3.4 million customers (cash users) and 2.5 cents average loss per transaction, it would only take one visit a month for them to cross a million dollars in losses.

Of course at that scale it's not like that million or two is really making a difference to their bottom line. Doing some quick Googling their annual revenue is estimated to be $6-7 billion.

Jblx24• 8 months ago

visit every day, some probably multiple times a day

Anyone have data on what percentage of the population visits convenience stores 500+ times per year? Sounds pretty inconvenient.

drsopp• 8 months ago

Oo, I'd like to get a roll of these. But I live in Norway.

UltraSane• 8 months ago

could get rid of dimes and nickels as well.

457649862• 8 months ago

Yes. I used to work at a movie theater, where all transactions were to the nearest $0.25 because it made it easier for the kids like me behind the counter to count the change and not lose track... seemed sensible at the time and that was 20 years ago.

guywithahat• 8 months ago

It would be cool to remove the hundredth place in general; just dimes and half dollars, although I don't see that happening any time soon

didgetmaster2• 8 months ago

Many are reporting this as if failing to mint new pennies each year is going to produce some kind of shortage. There are billions of pennies sitting in drawers or jars in homes across the nation (I certainly have one with about a thousand pennies in it).

I doubt anyone who needs a penny will be unable to find one within the next 100 years.

JohnFen8• 8 months ago

Most of the stores in my area have started requiring people to pay with exact change or by card because they can't get pennies to make change.

Personally, I think stores should just start setting prices to avoid the need for pennies, but that would be too easy, I guess.

knollimar3• 8 months ago

If your sales tax rate is 8.875%, what do you price a banana at to avoid change?

ianferrel6• 8 months ago

Setting prices to avoid the need for pennies is probably technically challenging given the combination of requirements to post prices and sales taxes that don't always round the same way.

If the effective tax rate is 7.432%, you can price single items so that the price plus tax ends up in a multiple of $0.05, but if you get a purchase with multiple items, you either need to round somewhere or post prices that are like $9.346263437.

jandrewrogers10• 8 months ago

It isn't that simple. There are stacked tax jurisdictions that can change their fraction of the tax independently. Some of those taxes are conditional at point-of-sale so the exact rate varies from customer to customer.

It is a mess but also not easy to unwind or patch over.

c223• 8 months ago

There's a cash-heavy business I work with that's already having a hard time sourcing the pennies they need. I guess they're all in a jar under your desk.

MangoToupe• 8 months ago

I have a hard time believing any business relies on access to Pennies when all cash transactions can be rounded to a nickel in some way amenable to both parties. I imagine most customers just don’t give a damn.

didgetmaster2• 8 months ago

It seems to me that if there was truly a shortage of pennies, banks could offer to pay 2 cents for every penny someone turned in (still far cheaper than minting a new one) and enough people would pull out their penny jars and cash them in.

mrweasel• 8 months ago

I don't know how accurate this is, but someone posted on Reddit some Burger King is already having a hard time getting pennies from their bank: https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1opdlm2/...

embedding-shape• 8 months ago

I doubt anyone who needs a penny will be unable to find one within the next 100 years.

Based on my experience with the universe, this ability of being able to find something whenever you need it, only happens until you start expecting it and when you really need it, you're not gonna be able to find it anywhere. Maybe "Murphy's law" isn't what I'm looking for but something similar? For when what you really need is no longer there, universe always works against you? Can't recall.

johnisgood• 8 months ago

Selective attention or confirmation bias with a hint of cosmic irony?

nayuki5• 8 months ago

We eliminated pennies in Canada in 2012 and the transition was a non-issue. The vast majority of retailers would round cash transactions to the nearest $0.05, but a few would round down to the nearest $0.05 in favor of the customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_low-denomination...

Canadian cash is better than American cash in several ways: No penny, durable polymer banknotes (instead of dirty wrinkly cotton paper), colorful banknotes (instead of all green) that are easy to distinguish, $1 and $2 coins in wide circulation (instead of worn-out $1 bills).

simonw3• 8 months ago

The linked article raises a few problems that the US could have with that solution:

Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change.

delecti7• 8 months ago

If the US properly got rid of pennies (instead of Trump just doing another end-run around congress, by ordering the Mint to stop making them, on shaky legal ground), the legislation could easily supersede those state laws.

ianferrel6• 8 months ago

This seems like a non-issue as long as they round the price down. Because there's no law that the store can't discount their total by a small amount and then provide exact change.

"Congratulations customer, we have a special coupon today for $0.03 off your purchase. Here's your change :)"

skylurk2• 8 months ago

require merchants to provide exact change

All the items in my dad's farm shop were priced so they came out to a round dollar amount after tax, and that was 40 years ago.

criddell2• 8 months ago

How do they deal with sales tax? Connecticut has a 6.35% sales tax so if I buy something for $1, the total will be $1.0635.

SoftTalker4• 8 months ago

I honestly don't know why we don't get rid of nickels and dimes as well. What can you still buy that costs less than $0.25?

blendergeek• 8 months ago

Bananas

stetrain2• 8 months ago

Yes, the quarter is pretty much the smallest useful unit of US currency and even that usefulness is shrinking pretty quickly.

If we would adopt a policy of including local sales tax in advertised prices, skipping to whole dollars would be pretty painless.

The main reason to keep at least quarters is all of the various coin-op machines that are still in service.

phantasmish3• 8 months ago

When we got rid of the half-penny, it was worth more in 2024 cents than the dime is now.

We waited so long past when we should have gotten rid of the penny that now a coin ten times as valuable is also worthless enough that we ought to get rid of it.

kevin_thibedeau3• 8 months ago

My employer has a 55¢ vending machine with a dodgy bill validator.

HarHarVeryFunny• 8 months ago

So how would you propose paying for something that cost $0.40, or would you just like to see all prices be multiples of 25c?

BTW, the reason for wanting to get rid of the penny isn't so much the low purchasing value, but more that they cost more to make (~4c) than their face value, so the government loses money making them. The same is true of nickels.

ahmeneeroe-v2• 8 months ago

American banknotes have numbers on them to easily distinguish the different values!

ceejayoz• 8 months ago

Not everyone can see.

Australian notes vary in size for this reason.

Arubis• 8 months ago

Which is great if you are fully abled! But for folks for whom sight isn't as strong, additional aids (different colors, different sized banknotes for different denominations) are super helpful.

ajmurmann• 8 months ago

From dealing with Euro notes, I like being able to look down at the money in the wallet and pull the right notes out based on color. With USD I need to take the bills out of the wallet.

afavour• 8 months ago

The United States is the only country that prints all denominations of currency in the same size. The US and Switzerland are the only two countries that use the same colors for all of their various bills. Needless to say, this sameness of size and color make it impossible for a blind person to locate the correct bills to make a purchase without some sort of assistance, or confirm that he or she has been given the correct change by the sales clerk. Even people with partial sight may have trouble distinguishing a $1 bill from a $10, especially if the bill is old and worn.

https://afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/ac...

nkrisc2• 8 months ago

And it would be even easier to distinguish them if they were different colors in addition to the printed numerals.

IshKebab• 8 months ago

This is a joke right?

iammattmurphy2• 8 months ago

Even though I never use cash, I’m really not a fan of coins, so I wish we did have $1 bills.

bigfishrunning2• 8 months ago

We do have $1 bills. And coins!

totallykvothe• 8 months ago

I'll agree on all but one point. The cotton/linen notes feel so much better in the hand than the candy wrapper plastic of Canadian bills. I know it's a dumb reason, but I just hate the feeling.

SCUSKU• 8 months ago

Plus US dollars just have that smell to them. I wouldn't mind though if we rotated out some of the faces on the bills, e.g. Andrew Jackson

stevage8• 8 months ago

Australian here. Barely anyone uses cash anymore. It's weird to see debates about moving towards technology we had 35 years ago which we don't even use anymore.

revicon2• 8 months ago

There are several US states where, by law, retailers are not allowed to give preferential treatment to credit card paying customers over cash paying ones. Which means, in those states, retailers will be required to always round transactions to the cash paying customer's benefit, where in other states the retailer is allowed to round to the nearest 5 cents. This is going to cost large retailers millions.

Interestingly many of them had already put the work into updating the cash register software to allow for this due to the penny shortages during covid.

bongodongobob• 8 months ago

It doesn't cost anyone anything. They can just raise prices 3 cents or whatever.

atq2119• 8 months ago

Let those large retailers put pressure on their suppliers. Prices haven't exactly been stable recently. I really don't think it matters, but if it did (as you claim) then surely some downward pressure is a good thing.

knorker2• 8 months ago

US notes also stink.

knorker2• 8 months ago

I don't get the downvotes. I'm not saying "stink as in I don't like it". US notes literally smell, and I've not gotten that from other currency.

It's not even controversial. If you Google it you'll find that it's even a deliberate anti counterfit technology.

noir_lord• 8 months ago

Same in UK but we also size each face value differently.

Which helps partially sighted people and is a good visual check.

extraduder_ire4• 8 months ago

It doesn't happen very often, but resizing coins when a new design is created strikes me as annoying.

Last time I was in the UK I also found it funny how large the 2p coin is compared to its value.

expedition322• 8 months ago

In my country they round up if you pay in cash but they keep the cents for electronic payments.

So for instance 1.69 in cash would be 1.70 but if you pay with your phone it stays at 1.69

kpw94• 8 months ago

$1 and $2 coins in wide circulation (instead of worn-out $1 bills).

This has its own pros/cons...

One advantage of $1 bill over coin is the majority of people in US don't need a wallet with zipper to hold coins. Five $1 bills is much less bulky and much lighter than five $1 CAD or five 1€ coins

wasabi9910117• 8 months ago

Of course everything has its pros and cons, but not all of them are worth considering.

The amount of wallets with zipper is a country is not worth considering when discussing what coins should be minted.

jamincan• 8 months ago

I would contend that 5 bills are more bulky than 5 coins. The only upside of dealing with US bills when travelling in the US is that you feel like a millionaire when you pull out the massive wad of bills from your pocket.

mynameisash• 8 months ago

the transition was a non-issue

I'm reminded of when Minnesota passed the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act (MCIAA) close to 20 years ago. (Some) restauranteurs - along with the GOP - made pronouncements about how this would destroy the economy. No one would go to out to eat or for a drink again. Doom and gloom.

Last I checked, there are plenty of restaurants open in the state, and things are going fine. In fact, just before the MCIAA went into effect, I had a newborn, and we went out to eat one time with him in tow. We asked for a non-smoking area but were placed immediately next to a family chain smoking. We decided to never go out to eat again until we could do so without risk of second-hand smoke.

My point is that there are frequently these predictions of things being impossible or even just incredibly difficult and not worth the effort, and in the end, it's not a big deal.

MrMorden2• 8 months ago

People overestimated the importance that smokers placed on being able to smoke in public.

A Japanese airline (Air Do) tried reintroducing the smoking section in the 1990s. It did not go well for them, and Japan's tobacco use rate was several times the US's.

dragonwriter11• 8 months ago

I'm reminded of when Minnesota passed the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act (MCIAA) close to 20 years ago. (Some) restauranteurs - along with the GOP - made pronouncements about how this would destroy the economy. No one would go to out to eat or for a drink again. Doom and gloom.

Yeah, they had done the same thing when California did the same thing 30 years ago. The fact that it didn't happen then didn't stop them from doing it everywhere else similar laws were subsequently proposed.

Projectiboga• 8 months ago

The US has been moving to colored denominations for awhile now.

spiderice• 8 months ago

Better is very subjective here. I hate the colorful, plastic, canadian money. It feels toyish, like monopoly money. Whereas USD feels much more nice to deal with.

chawco• 8 months ago

As a Canadian with kids who recently bought Monopoly, I can you tell you that American money objectively feels much more like Monopoly money...

shrubble• 8 months ago

Canadian Tire Company should be the ones designing the bills, however…

rz2k• 8 months ago

I am suspicious of any claims about relative cleanliness. As with wooden vs plastic cutting boards, our intuitions are likely misleading.

To be an effective fomite the currency has to not kill the microbe, and it has to readily give up the microbe to the next recipient. Organic materials like cotton or linen seem more likely to simply absorb a viral envelope or bacterial cell wall, thereby rendering it ineffective. Furthermore, the porous nature makes it more difficult for the note to give up any microbe that isn't immediately killed before it naturally dies over time.

A brief search of the scientific literature doesn't seem to show any conclusive results, but it does seem like the relative performance is pathogen specific.

zahlman24• 8 months ago

"Dirty" also connotes physical appearance, you know.

pjdemers• 8 months ago

Paying by card doesn't round, the amount charged is exact cents, or at least that's the way it worked last time I was in Canada.

codyb2• 8 months ago

All green notes are barely there anymore... the dollar bill itself. Even the five has some color now.

munificent• 8 months ago

We eliminated pennies in Canada in 2012 and the transition was a non-issue.

That's because Canada had a plan, thought it through, and rolled it out.

In the US...

“We had a social media post (by Trump) during Super Bowl Sunday, but no real plan for what retailers would have to do,” he said, referring to the president’s February announcement.

We have a deranged old man posting random shit on social media determining federal policy, so of course it's a chaotic shitshow.

We elected a clown, we got a circus.

MrMorden2• 8 months ago

Unlike serving as a Republican politician, clowning requires a lot of work and training. It's nothing resembling an unskilled job. Ringling Bros. would do a lot better.

kccqzy• 8 months ago

I simply don’t like coins because they are heavy. I will continue to prefer $1 bills over $1 coins. Agree with the rest of your points though.

wrs• 8 months ago

That's because in Canada you actually prepared for the transition, instead of just proclaiming it in a tweet.

PeaceTed• 8 months ago

Very similar to the Australian system. We eliminated the 1 and 2 cent coins in 1992 without issue.

Also has the polymer based colouful bank notes. Far easier to tell what you are handing over. Also given us some good names.

$5 (Pink) = Prawn/Piglet

$10 (Blue) = Bluey

$20 (Red) = Lobster/Red back

$50 (Yellow) = Pineapple/Banana

$100 (Green) = Avacado

So you get sentences like "They needed cash so I threw a pineapple at them".

nayuki5• 8 months ago

Very similar to the Australian system

Yes, and in fact:

Once the design and substrate were chosen, the Bank of Canada negotiated a contract with Note Printing Australia (NPA) for the supply of the substrate polymer and the security features implemented in the design. The substrate is supplied to NPA by Securency International (now known as Innovia Films Ltd). The Bank also negotiated for the rights to the use of intellectual property associated with the material and security features owned by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_(banknotes)

And the material is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypropylene#Biaxially_orient...

fastball• 8 months ago

Having $1 bills is so much nicer than having $1 coins. I don't want more coins, thanks.

linsomniac• 8 months ago

Canadian cash is better than American cash in several ways: [...] $1 and $2 coins in wide circulation (instead of worn-out $1 bills).

I especially liked that the $2 coin breaks into 2 $1 coins if you drop it right. ;-)

(j/k, IIRC that was an early manufacturing defect)

bytesandbits• 8 months ago

I mean. I can't remember last time I used cash. Not in the last 5 years that is for sure. Once I paid someone with Venmo as that was the only way they could take it. Other than that time, I don't remember using cash at all. In SF the two only moments I can recall needing cash for is either some old self-service laundromats or funnily, chinatown where most of it is still cash. In fact recently a bunch of locations I go to often have become cashless. So you wouldn't be able to pay cash even if you wanted to. Business that are cash only do it for one reason, and one reason only, and we all know what that reason is. Slowly but steadily the volume of retail consumer cashflow is turning to digital. Cash is not going away today. Many seniors don't want / know how to use digital payments. Trends show we are moving toward all-digital. Probably 10 years from now +95% of retail will be cash-less.

biztos2• 8 months ago

Are they different sizes so the blind can easily use them?

dreamcompiler• 8 months ago

US $1 coins are available at banks but most Americans don't know they exist and if you hand one to a service person as a tip they sneer at you as though you handed them a quarter or foreign money.

mbonnet• 8 months ago

Canadian banknotes being different physical dimensions from each other makes them distinguishable to the visually impaired too.

golvok• 8 months ago

You may be thinking of Euro notes, but the Canadian ones do have a braille code on them.

bob1029• 8 months ago

I wonder how long of not minting new pennies it would take for the average collectible value of the existing stock to reach break-even again.

I feel like pennies fall out of circulation at a very high rate compared to other denominations.

firefax2• 8 months ago

Can any coin collectors let me know what, if any, effect this may have on the collection of steel pennies I have secured in my bunker in the woods?

ireflect• 8 months ago

Finally!

Here is a delightful article from NYT from last year on this topic. Truly fascinating and bewildering.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/magazine/worthless-pennie...

bigbadfeline• 8 months ago

Finally... NYT from last year... Truly fascinating and bewildering

Yeah, really bewildering, happiness inflated by inflation.

FergusArgyll• 8 months ago

When Robert Whaples, an economist at Wake Forest University, published an article in 2006 about the imperative to eliminate America’s 1-cent coin, he received a personal note: “Get it done, and you will deserve the Nobel Prize!”

Everything makes sense now...

thayne3• 8 months ago

I'm a little worried this will encourage vendors to increases prices up to the next 5 cent mark, which will cause inflation that we really don't need more of right now.

timbit42• 8 months ago

In Canada, most prices still end in 99. You still pay to the cent if you're paying with a debit or credit card, which the vast majority of customers are these days.

phantasmish3• 8 months ago

Gas stations price to the tenth of a penny per gallon. There is no 1/10 cent coin. Works fine.

warmwaffles• 8 months ago

That's because the law requires them to charge that extra 9/10. It's silly.

lbourdages• 8 months ago

This has not been an issue in Canada. There is sales tax, which basically randomizes the last digit.

hnburnsy• 8 months ago

Finally, can we next stop making dollar bills and add a two dollar coin.

mannyv• 8 months ago

And the people rejoiced!

throw0101d• 8 months ago

So Obama wanted to wanted to ban the penny, but it was deemed illegal to do so and efforts to get rid of the law requiring it did not pass:

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/02/10/trump-us-mi...

* https://www.local3news.com/obama-wants-to-retire-the-penny-b...

It's not that keeping the penny around is (necessarily) a good idea, but that there are, you know, laws, and people (including the President and cabinet folks) should kind of follow those laws. So has the law been amended to not require the minting of the penny anymore?

* https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-order-scrap-penny-make-cent...

* https://www.npr.org/2025/02/10/nx-s1-5292082/trump-penny-min...

Is there some 'new interpretation' that has been 'found' that allows Sec. Treasury to not mint pennies? Or is this change one made by fiat / executive order?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_debate_in_the_United_Sta...

There's only semi-consideration been given to this; the retailers want official rules passed on how round should be done

* https://www.rila.org/focus-areas/finance/main-street-busines...

For example, one subtly:

Ensure rounding for cash customers does not violate terms of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The SNAP program sensibly requires that SNAP customers cannot be treated differently than other customers.2 These provisions prohibit treating SNAP customers less favorably or more favorably than other customers. That means that rounding the price of food for a cash customer in either direction risks creating a violation of SNAP regulations for stores that participate in the SNAP program.

mattnewton8• 8 months ago

You already know the answer.

kevin_thibedeau3• 8 months ago

The president is now immune to obeying the law and can pardon all of his stooges.

SauntSolaire• 8 months ago

These are the types of comments people start making when they've been mindkilled by politics.

dgrin91• 8 months ago

My understanding from something I read months ago - its a new interpretation. Specifically the law instructs the gov to make as many pennies as is necessary, but does not define what that is or how to calculate it. If the government deems necessary = 0, then you dont need to make any more.

Since the law is still on the books its still legal tender, and production may restart at any moment.

rando0011113• 8 months ago

to my knowledge the legislation only says that the executive branch needs to make the "necessary" amount of pennies. the argument is that because they're losing money literally printing money that the "necessary" amount is zero and that therefore doing this follows the law because zero is an amount.

kjkjadksj2• 8 months ago

I don’t understand why it costing more than face value to mint is such a bad thing

viburnum• 8 months ago

That was before Trump v. United States (2024)

Amorymeltzer• 8 months ago

Some interesting complications with rounding I had not heard about before were mentioned here, worth noting I think, especially given the prominence of SNAP in the news lately:

Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).
In addition, the law covering the federal food assistance program known as SNAP requires that recipients not be charged more than other customers. Since SNAP recipients use a debit card that’s charged the precise amount, if merchants round down prices for cash purchases, they could be opening themselves to legal problems and fines, said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for NACS.
“Rounding down on all transactions presents several challenges beyond the loss of an average of 2 cents per transaction,” Lenard said. “We desperately need legislation that allows rounding so retailers can make change for these customers.”

phantom7844• 8 months ago

For the SNAP law, could they just round down SNAP purchases in the same way to be compliant?

mattnewton8• 8 months ago

They probably will, but that means a POS software update on a tight deadline.

anticorporate2• 8 months ago

The SNAP equal treatment rule requirement works in both directions: Prices cannot be higher or lower for SNAP recipients. As a retailer, there is an option to request a waiver, though.

nofriend• 8 months ago

just make the price a multiple of five cents

mattnewton8• 8 months ago

State and local taxes make this infeasible

AnotherGoodName• 8 months ago

They can round down the card transactions too if it’s really a problem to charge differing amounts.

For those that seriously think this would be a major problem there was a comedy skit circulating in Australia when this happened. A guy would push his car to the petrol pump, fill with 2c of petrol, rounded down to 0. The guy at the counter just laughed at it. You could in theory do this 1000 more times (would take hours) for $20 of free petrol. At least until the worker got sick of it and enforced the whole right to refuse service.

mortar• 8 months ago

I had this same idea and seem to recall even trying it, but it was mostly thwarted when they added minimum liquid delivery amounts.

SkyPuncher6• 8 months ago

enforced the whole right to refuse service.

This is what everyone forgets. If you can't provide exact change, then you can refuse service.

oktoberpaard3• 8 months ago

In the Netherlands cash payments get rounded to the nearest 5 cents, in both directions. Card payments are not rounded. If I’m not mistaken, you can still demand exact change according to the law and you’re allowed to pay the exact amount (cents are still legal tender). Most merchants wouldn’t be able to give you exact change, so it depends on the situation what would happen. I’ve never heard of such a situation happening, though.

pests2• 8 months ago

If someone demands exact change is it allowed to give them more? What if you don't have the exact change?

coded_monkey• 8 months ago

You are mistaken. Merchants are allowed to round to the nearest 5 cents and you can’t do anything about it (except pay by card). Of course, budget stores like Lidl and Aldi still use them but any other corporation is not going to care.

http://www.nederlandsemunten.nl/Artikelen_over_munten/De_cen...

a_c_s• 8 months ago

Right, but getting fined in this situation means the government is incompetent. They should just tell retailers the "right" thing to do and not fine any retailers that follow the guidelines.

The idea that this is complicated legally is an example of why so many Americans are so frustrated with their government. Common sense should rule the day, not mindless legalism.

rtkwe6• 8 months ago

The issue with "common sense" is there's no way to run anything based on it because you'll get 100 different ideas of what that means in any situation. 90% of customers would be fine with the rounding to the nearest 5 cent plan but there's a streak of stubborn people who'd refuse to accept it and waste some legal time trying to get proven 'right' so the stores want legal clarity so they don't have to deal with that.

dec0dedab0de3• 8 months ago

I think they should just change the prices to make it work out after tax. It’s not that hard.

janalsncm3• 8 months ago

It’s the same issue for sub-penny rounding which happens without issue. It’s the same principle.

CheeseFromLidl• 8 months ago

Did anyone ever make a simulator for pennies hitting the floor like in the top video?

ck2• 8 months ago

Well no, apparently ANY President now has almost ANY power

so the next President could order a new penny made with their face on it

sure they could, look at the east-wing and tell me what limits of power a President has

mattnewton8• 8 months ago

Any Republican president maybe. The Supreme Court and a Fox media circuit would never let the opposition ignore congress like this.

Night_Thastus4• 8 months ago

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now.

It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything.

Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a choke-hold on retailers, and the whole thing is basically a scheme that funnels money from the poor to the wealthy via interest and fees on the consumer, interchange fees, and rewards programs.

datadrivenangel2• 8 months ago

But add a $3.50 coin so that we can strongly incentivize coffee to stay below a certain price.

rustystump• 8 months ago

Also for the memes…

quijoteuniv• 8 months ago

Just take a zero out of everything and change the name from dollar to something else!

binarymax2• 8 months ago

My local just went from $3.50 to $4 this week :(

jimbokun3• 8 months ago

One of the things I admire most about Italy is how they have held the line on the price of an espresso.

It’s still just slightly over €1 if you drink it standing at the bar.

They really have their priorities straight when it comes to food and drink prices.

jabbany• 8 months ago

I know this is supposed to be a joke but... businesses have pushed for this the other way around in the past, asking for a new coin to raise prices.

The Coca-Cola Company sought ways to increase the five cent price, even approaching the U.S. Treasury Department in 1953 to ask that they mint a 7.5 cent coin. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_price_of_Coca-Cola_from_...]

JJMcJ2• 8 months ago

The last time a coin was dropped was the half penny in the late 1850s, when I think it was worth about 25 cents today, so there is a precedent for what you are suggesting.

EvanAnderson• 8 months ago

CCP Grey has a nice video and discusses the precedent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UT04p5f7U

jjk7• 8 months ago

Only if the increased revenue from rounding doesn't go into retailers pockets but rather is redistributed somehow. i.e. to reduce sales tax

jrochkind12• 8 months ago

A noticeable number of places around me in an urban area in the USA already now have signs up saying they won't make any coin change at all! Pay with a card, or exact change, or they'll round up to the dollar keep the difference.

Sometimes the sign says "due to the penny shortage" and has been up for a year or whatever, I dunno. But they aren't just not giving you pennies in your change, they are refusing any coins in your change. I am curious as to the motivation, I could guess but it's not obvious to me. They will still take coins as payment, just not give them as change.

jjmarr• 8 months ago

You can either put payments into the register or the safe.

If it goes into the safe, it's nearly impossible to steal because there's a time lock preventing the cashier from accessing it. But you can't make change.

This means you have a optimization problem to have the minimum possible cash in the register to meet all change needs.

Eliminating denominations makes the optimization problem easier, if nothing else.

darth_avocado2• 8 months ago

If the Pennies go away, you can no longer get things for pennies on the dollar.

droptablemain• 8 months ago

The famous little jingle "shave and a haircut, two bits"

Most people today have no clue what a "bit" is.

I imagine the future will hold something similar for the penny in all the idioms and cultural phrases we have. What the hell is a penny?

mtmail2• 8 months ago

Soon one can no longer add 2 cents to a discussion.

nerdsniper• 8 months ago

The half-penny was discontinued in 1857. Adjusted for inflation it was worth 37 cents in todays money when it was discontinued.

cft• 8 months ago

And hell, put Bank of Zimbabwe on the bills.

Night_Thastus4• 8 months ago

I don't like inflation either. The fact that it's 'normal' or 'required for growth' to me sounds like economic bollocks and a lot of pretending that it doesn't cause issues in the long run.

But it's here to stay, nothing we can do about it.

b112• 8 months ago

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story.

Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. And the math seems fair enough:

https://www.budget.canada.ca/2012/themes/theme2-info-eng.htm...

Basically, if something is $1.01 or $1.02, you round down. If it's $1.03 or $1.04, you round up. Rounding is to be applied after all taxes are paid, etc.

Of course, there was also central guidance and, well, everyone just followed it. It's called "having a society".

People blathering on about stores fixing the rounding are morons, there's no way to do so if you buy more than one item. No one gets ripped off with the above method. In the end, it just works out.

And really, who cares?! It's a penny.

ryanmcbride2• 8 months ago

Rounding is such a weird boogeyman to me because people are like "the companies are just going to use it to get more money from the customers" but, they're doing that anyway. They don't need this excuse to raise prices they'll just do it anyway.

Same thing when people complain that raising minimum wage will increase prices, meanwhile prices have increased for 50 years completely separate from wages. They don't need the excuse to raise prices they're just gonna do it anyway.

If they want companies to not raise prices the only answer is regulation, but regulation is communism and therefore bad.

I'm so god damn tired.

simpleguitar• 8 months ago

As the article points out, there are laws that say people who pay via SNAP debit cards "cannot be charged more than others".

If cash payments are rounded down, but debit card payments aren't, they are in violation of state law.

The article also points out that rollback of pennies in Canada and other places were planned, addressing these kinds of issues. USA is doing it with no such planning.

jacobgkau13• 8 months ago

Basically, if something is $1.01 or $1.02, you round down. If it's $1.03 or $1.04, you round up.

So everything's going to be $1.03 or $1.04. Not sure why you think retailers (or any sellers) would ever, ever, ever let this play into customers' advantage.

But apparently pointing out that obvious truth makes me a "moron," because you can think of some clever ways to get around it that retailers surely won't work around.

mikkupikku2• 8 months ago

Media is just doing media things, ignore them. Nobody I know has even mentioned the penny thing, let alone expressed a strong opinion about it. From my perspective I have seen zero evidence of the American public caring one iota.

quantified3• 8 months ago

When the US attempted to transition to the metric system, gas stations raised their prices per unit volume and the American consumer was convinced that the metric system was bad. I have family that think metric is bad because some fringe people thought there should be 10 hours in a day and 100 minutes in an hour, also something like 10 months a year, and the whole thing is bad because some awkward ideas were floated.

Here, it's a question of resolution, with a proven history that transitions screw the consumer, though maybe it won't be so. We're ok with arbitrary hundredths of a dollar, why were we not at thousandths? The American half cent disappeared a long time ago. You still need to include the cents in a tax bill that runs into the millions of dollars.

It's just an awkward stage in inflation. Eventually a US dollar will be worth what a Zimbabwean dollar was, and we won't have $100 bills anymore.

BrenBarn• 8 months ago

It's called "having a society".

That must be nice.

kube-system• 8 months ago

There are already stores in the US that are rounding their transactions because of the penny shortage that is already happening. Many are just simply rounding all transactions down to the nearest $0.05.

verelo• 8 months ago

Growing up in Australia 1 cent pieces were gone before i knew what money was. Coming to Canada in 2009 on a trip, i was shocked to see them. They were annoying and instantly drove me crazy, but i felt bad throwing them out. I threw them out anyway, helping reduce inflation

pwg2• 8 months ago

Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story.

It's not. Some US states have laws on the books that make it illegal for retailers to round up. The turmoil is that if the retailer can only round down to the nearest five cents, then they stand to lose from one to four cents per cash sale for any sale that is not a multiple of five cents. Add those one to four cent losses up over a large enough number of transactions and the retailer stands to lose a considerable sum over the course of a year. And many retail shops already operate with thin margins anyway, so the loss from "always round down" could erase whatever thin margins some shops already operate under.

hinkley2• 8 months ago

I think people underestimate how many stores used to set prices to avoid pennies. When I was a kid it was frequent. Goose the price so cost + tax rounded to the nearest nickel. But now everything is 23.99 or sometimes 23.95, and they use the pennies place to denote clearance items. Like 19.94 or 3.98.

gblargg4• 8 months ago

Things have always been rounded (tax). There's just a change in what multiple it's rounded to.

harikb• 8 months ago

Watch 'Pop' (Malcome McDowell) in Son of a Critch :) . I don't remember the episode/season.... where he goes on and on about some $1 bill that will be decommissioned and goes to the bank to get some...

HWR_14• 8 months ago

I'd be amazed if prices weren't engineered so they rounded up far more often than down.

babypuncher• 8 months ago

And the reality is that with most price tags ending in .99, retailers will actually round down to .95 to preserve the psychological benefit of not crossing a dollar barrier.

nightshift1• 8 months ago

we should have converted everything to integers.

ourmandave• 8 months ago

Have you never seen the documentary Office Space where penny rounding goes terribly wrong?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnPBSy5FsOc

OJFord• 8 months ago

But it's simple to fix: keep all values representable. So get rid of 2c if you have them, or 5, but keep the 1.

Since we got rid of the half penny in the UK there simply isn't half penny pricing. (I do remember 2-for-a-penny sweets though, but they'd probably be at least 5p each now anyway.)

conductr5• 8 months ago

Of course you’re absolutely right and the whole thing just illustrates how dysfunctional the US is. I mean, this edict originated in a tweet or whatever it’s called now. Even after months, nobody could be bothered to think about how to properly execute it that solves the various concerns. We really can’t solve the simplest of problems any longer our politicians just cause noise with no signal and just actively undermine everything they touch. Not even talking specifically about the person you might think I am, this is a systemic issue.

julianlam• 8 months ago

Canadian here. Honestly, the hardest part about Canada dropping the penny is that sometimes you'll go someplace cool and see one of those penny rolling machines, and... um... there are no more pennies.

But they usually have a little bowl of bronze slugs (or old pennies) just for the machines now.

stevage8• 8 months ago

Kind of emblematic of the issue of Americans not looking to other countries to see what works and what doesn't.

epolanski• 8 months ago

We getting rid in Europe of 1 and 2 cents which are more valuables than pennies and nobody gives two damns.

Even roundings in Italy, by law, now are 5 cent based: meaning you can't have a bill that ends with 5 cents it has to get rounded to the nearest multiple of ten cents.

Seriously, nobody cares.

benchly• 8 months ago

I've thought on this as someone who travels between the US and Canada a lot, and the scene about the embezzlement scheme from Office Space often comes to mind (the "Pennies for everyone" tray: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/ea64c5fd-3c6d-46f9-b729-beef7b0...)

For me, it's not about the pennies I'm losing. You're right, I don't care about them and the end of their minting doesn't mean much to me at all. No, it's about who is getting the pennies I'm losing. Let's say Nestle, a company I loath, has a box of instant noodles for $0.99 USD. Our hypothetical noodles are very popular, so everyone in the US tends to buy them.

Suddenly, pennies go away. Nestle thinks "hmm, so our customers were already paying $0.99, might as well just bump the price up to $1.00, nobody will care." And they'd be correct. As a typical consumer, I'd pay $1.00 for something that I was just paying $0.99 for because the difference is negligible to me.

But if everyone in the US buys them for lunch, that's not a negligible difference to Nestle. That's nearly $3,500,000 USD in extra revenue that week. If the consumer behavior remains consistent, that's an extra $182,000,000 USD per year. Maybe that seems like small potatoes compared to what Nestle grosses annually on a global scale, but even the richest of companies can do A LOT with that much extra cash.

But of course, that is an extreme and overly simplified example. However, it illustrates the idea that while the individual will not really feel the change, the collectives or corporations will.

I'm not an economics expert by any stretch of the imagination, but one thing I'm fairly sure about is when something like this type of change happens, the corporations are unchallenged at finding ways to exploit it, which usually translates to more money going up to them and less coming back down to the individual.

sumtechguy• 8 months ago

Also to add we are already rounding. When you do taxes it does not come out to a full penny. There is a fraction of a penny (hi there office space and superman 3). That fraction is already rounded. Also many transactions are with credit cards. Those can just keep going the way they are and no rounding needed.

dennis_jeeves23• 8 months ago

Of course, there was also central guidance and, well, everyone just followed it. It's called "having a society".

Nice concept.

smallmouth• 8 months ago

Ha! There'll be no rounding down.

refurb• 8 months ago

I think the issue is you’re confusing social media comments with broad, overall opinions.

I’d bet most Americans don’t even know they are getting rid of the penny. Or if they saw it on the news, they forgot about it a day later. It ranks pretty low on general concerns.

Social media commentary about the issue are a tiny minority - first people need to come across the topic, then they need to muster up the effort to actually comment. People who don’t care don’t comment.

I see this mistake with a lot of people. Issues they think are top of mind across people aren’t even known by the vast majority.

toast07• 8 months ago

Nickles are likely to go shortly after. You can do everything you can with nickles with dimes and quarters, nickles have worse economics than pennies, and have had their minting suppressed below the market needs for years. Once pennies leave circulation, the problems with nickles will become urgent and they'll quickly leave.

Dimes are small and cheap to make though, so they'll probably stick around.

axiolite12• 8 months ago

It's impractical to eliminate the nickel and penny, while keeping the quarter and dime. The most practical way forward is to keep only the dime, but people will be quite upset about the loss of the quarter.

frankus• 8 months ago

Rounding to a nickel has the advantage that's it's both simple (1, 2, 6, and 7 round down; 3, 4, 8, and 9 round up) and fair (there's no systematic bias in favor of the buyer or seller).

Dimes need to deal with how to round numbers ending in 5, making them unfair, or (with a more elaborate system of looking at both digits) complicated.

Quarters (being an odd value) are fair, but kind of a nightmare to memorize all of the values that round up or down (1–12, 26–37, 51–62, and 76–87 round down; 13–24, 38–49, 63–74, and 88–99 round up; and I'm not even sure I don't have an error in those numbers).

Also it's awkward if a higher-valued coin (e.g. quarters) isn't divisible by the least valuable coin (e.g. a dime)

TheJoeMan2• 8 months ago

Quick, someone file a trademark for “Take a Quarter, Leave a Quarter”

zer00eyz• 8 months ago

It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything.

The problem: the dollar is almost global in its usage. The penny may not be important to the US, but it dam well is every where else where dollars are still in use frequently, along side, or in place of the local/native currency.

Getting rid of the penny will have implications, getting rid of more coins would endanger the use of the dollar globally.

There is still a large portion of the world where 100 dollar bill and a Rolex will get you home safely.

diogocp• 8 months ago

Approximately nobody uses US coins outside the US. Even in countries where the dollar is widely accepted, trying to use coins will get you weird looks at best.

Night_Thastus4• 8 months ago

In what part of the world do they use US pennies?

The US currency system sure. But pennies, specifically?

dpark15• 8 months ago

The penny may not be important to the US, but it dam well is every where else where dollars are still in use frequently

[citation needed]

tiagod• 8 months ago

As far as I am aware, USD is used for larger amounts in such countries. Smaller purchases are made in the local currency.

zdragnar• 8 months ago

There are also plenty of places where flashing a 100 dollar bill and a Rolex will ensure you don't get home at all.

Symbiote2• 8 months ago

Countries like Ecuador that use US dollars mint their own coins for local circulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuadorian_centavo_coins

wat100006• 8 months ago

It's a little silly. The smallest denomination the US has ever had was a half cent. In terms of relative purchasing power, it was more valuable than a dime is today. The country didn't collapse.

firefax2• 8 months ago

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now.

Let's do it like Japan does, only one type of currency. And that currency will be the penny. One dollar note? No buddy... that's a one hundred cent note now.

We may or may not continue to mint one dollar coins (previously one cent coins), but everything will make... cents.

(I guess this style of humor is better delivered verbally?)

toast07• 8 months ago

JPY has the benefit that people probably don't try to use floating point numbers for currency. (ignoring the central joke of your comment)

extraduder_ire4• 8 months ago

The sen still exists. There's even a few 50 sen coins still floating around.

mathgradthrow• 8 months ago

Nothing avoids rounding.

Babkock• 8 months ago

Some people are poor. Did you know that? Some people live in poverty. I'm sure that is a big surprise to you. Some Americans still have to spend nickels and dimes. Crazy, right? Some people don't have infinite Bitcoin from mommy and daddy.

BenjiWiebe2• 8 months ago

I'm in favor of keeping dimes.

However, to put it into perspective, a dime is only 50 seconds of labor at Kansas' minimum wage ($7.25/hr).

It's hard to find a situation where a dime truly makes much difference. And remember the rounding. You won't always lose 10c just because dimes don't exist.

Dylan168072• 8 months ago

Some people are poor. What about it?

Removing a coin doesn't change the average price people pay for things.

Think about doing it the other way. Would bringing back the half penny help poor people?

mulmen10• 8 months ago

I’d like to see an estimation of how often coinage is actually used. I play a lot of pinball so I handle quarters frequently but I can’t really think of what I do with the smaller denominations except collect them in a jar.

I wouldn’t mind having larger coin denominations though. Dollar and five dollar coins would be very convenient.

RobotToaster2• 8 months ago

Why is everyone talking about rounding?

I've read there's enough pennies in bank vaults to last for years.

ayaros• 8 months ago

While minting this currency the government continues to nickel and dime the American people.

dec0dedab0de3• 8 months ago

i want them to make coins for all the current bills, and expand bills to higher amounts. Cash has not kept up with inflation.

mattmaroon• 8 months ago

Governments should simply put a cap on credit card merchant fees of half a percent or something like that, which I’m pretty sure is what they do in other countries. Problem solved.

Night_Thastus4• 8 months ago

Good luck getting anything like that to pass here though!

waynecochran• 8 months ago

Also, we can store 1/4 exactly in binary, but not 1/100, 1/20, or 1/10. So that solves another problem.

jrussino• 8 months ago

Quarters can stay, for now.

I'd say just drop the second decimal place and have dimes and half-dollar coins.

thescriptkiddie2• 8 months ago

also bring back the 50-cent piece, eliminate the redundant dollar bill, and replace the 2 dollar bill with a new 2 dollar coin

seanmcdirmid2• 8 months ago

So lets just adopt low overhead (read cheap) wireless QR-based payments like China has? Is there really a good reason to do cash anymore? We don't have to choose between expensive credit cards and cash, there are other solutions out there that are taking over the rest of the world.

EasyMark6• 8 months ago

The big reason is less government traceability and surveillance. People like cash, we don't need everything to be digital and easily controlled. The fact that China does it doesn't really give me a lot of confidence that it's necessarily an awesome idea.

epistasis• 8 months ago

Your proposal lacks common cents! (Which I fully agree with)

I'd like to get a dollar coin that is distinctive enough to not be confused with the quarter. Last time I got change for cash, the cashier mistook a dollar coin for a quarter when giving me coins.

EasyMark6• 8 months ago

I don't want people using cards more, as I don't want a cashless society. Government knows enough about it, why make it easier? I'm find with getting rid of pennies and nickles though, we can do that.

k2enemy• 8 months ago

It is a misconception that credit card rewards are a transfer of wealth from poor to rich: https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/credit-card-r...

nixpulvis4• 8 months ago

Get rid of the nickel, dime, and quarter. Increase the 1/2 dollar and dollar coins, and add new 2, and 5 dollar coins.

jacquesm• 8 months ago

So why would you drive to increase that choke hold?

Cash is the way for small retailers to allow people who have very little money to stay away from the lure of easy credit. If you force them to use cards they will lose track of their spending completely and that will surely not help.

sschueller• 8 months ago

Quarters don't make sense to me. We don't have $25 notes either why should be have 25c coins?

bloak2• 8 months ago

I don't know the history of it but I noticed that the currency of the Netherlands, before they switched to the euro, consistently used quarters:

Coins: 0.05, 0.10, 0.25, 1, 2.5, 5 Bank notes: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250

OK, there seems to be a gap there, but no coin or bank note is worth 2 * 10^X.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_guilder

Is there another currency that consistently prefers 2.5 * 10^X to 2 * 10^X?

ProllyInfamous• 8 months ago

Make a dollar coin, the size of a current-half-dollar.

Make a half-dollar coin, the size of the current quarter.

Make a quarter, the size of the current dime.

Get rid of all other coins. Also remove the $1.00 bill.

Start using $2.00 bills (as smallest cash) and stock ATMs with $50 and $10 bills.

Create a new $1000.00 note.

----

[not actually] fun fact: removal of the penny results in more nickels being minted, which will actually result in a net-cost for removing penny from circulation.

DoctorOW• 8 months ago

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now.

Counterpoint: Get rid of nickels and quarters. In the digital age, it's far more practical to round to the nearest $0.1 than $0.05.

grishka• 8 months ago

Russia eliminated all kopeck coins years ago and anyone hardly noticed. Seemingly the only place you could still see any is a bank. Retailers usually round down to whole rubles if you're paying in cash.

paxys2• 8 months ago

Too early to say "ever", considering there has been no act of congress on this matter and the penny continues to be legal tender. The decision to stop minting it is a (legally debatable) executive order, and the next president or even the current one can change their mind about it tomorrow.

aDyslecticCrow2• 8 months ago

lets hope not. This is long overdue and should pose relatively little issue compared to most other recent questionable executive orders.

stop minting and stop accepting is commonly separated to allow adjustment. so likely a later president will just add the second phaseout step.

dawnerd• 8 months ago

I agree it's time to follow Canada and the rest of the world but it needs to be done through congress, not executive orders. It needs to have a proper framework for migration and laws for how payments are rounded.

asdfman1232• 8 months ago

I say we eliminate both pennies and (significantly more importantly) executive orders

CSMastermind• 8 months ago

(significantly more importantly) executive orders

How would that work?

The president is the executive of the federal government and needs to issue directives to employees telling them how to do their jobs.

This is like saying we should get rid of CEOs sending emails.

chiph• 8 months ago

Like many people, I throw my change into a jar when I get home. One time I only kept pennies and used an old apple cider jug. Turns out that a gallon of pennies is worth almost $55 [0]. And that carrying a heavy glass jug filled with pennies to the Coinstar machine is very anxiety inducing.

Speaking of which - the Coinstar machines near me will give you several options for redemption. Some of which have been Amazon and Home Depot e-gift codes that have no redemption fee.

[0] A potential worthless interview question...

randomtoast• 8 months ago

You probably could have made $150 if you had melted the coins and sold the copper instead.

arantius• 8 months ago

A penny is less than 3% copper (since 1982).

deafpolygon• 8 months ago

we don’t have “pennies” in the EU anymore

estimator72923• 8 months ago

I'm now seeing signs in stores begging people for exact change due to a "penny shortage"

Seriously? You can't give up 4 cents per transaction to round to a nickel? Fuck, round it up for all I care, 5 cents is worth approximately nothing today.

dbcooper• 8 months ago

Nick Mullen should be the guest of honor at this event.

dlivingston• 8 months ago

Ha, didn't expect to see a comment about Mullen on HN. Saw him live in Boston a few months ago. Very cool to see the C-Town boys blowing up in popularity.

fortran77• 8 months ago

Apropos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8R5QCPUqaI

mmmBacon• 8 months ago

I’m old enough to remember being able to scrounge around the house for pennies and heading down to Gracie’s corner store so I could buy some Swedish fish. They were 1 cent each. Gracie counted them out and put them in a small paper bag for you.

A major score was finding a dime or quarter on the street. When the Whatchamacallit first came out they were 25 cents!

lenerdenator• 8 months ago

There's something about getting rid of Honest Abe on coinage that seems... sadly appropriate for the current climate.

At least he's still on fives.

ezfe3• 8 months ago

Step one: make all items cost an even five cents after tax. step two: when making price adjustments like discount, round the effect to the nearest five cents. Step three: charge everyone this amount

m4632• 8 months ago

But if 99 cent stuff costs a dollar, sales will plummet.

ezfe3• 8 months ago

If they are worried about that then they can make them 95¢

1970-01-01• 8 months ago

It's been useless baggage for decades. The even saner approach would be to fade-out an order of magnitude of currency every century. The math checks out.

TheJoeMan2• 8 months ago

Do any other countries have/had “penny squish” souvenir machines? You put in 2 quarters + a penny, and it stamps a design onto the penny. My favorite souvenir, small, cheap, can keep in a booklet, and many landmarks have the machines. There are a few machines that take a $1 bill and use a fresh penny blank internally.

WorkingDead• 8 months ago

Our money is being depreciated at a rate of 3% per year and up to 25%-30% during the last inflationary cycle and is now to the point where coins are nearly useless. At the current trajectory, the one dollar note will also be obsolete in our lifetime.

codyb2• 8 months ago

As much as there's a lot of reasonable arguments for ending the minting of the penny, the method in which this president waves his hands and fundamentally changes things such as our White House, our currency, our trade policies, our universities leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and it's hard to support even sensible decisions this authoritarian regime makes.

halapro• 8 months ago

The fact that you'd need to even mint them in 2025 is mind boggling. Why isn't there a law that stops minting coins that cost more than their values? You'd think they would have figured this out by now?

gwbas1c• 8 months ago

IMO:

1: The price posted should be the price you pay. (Include all taxes, fees, gratuities, ect.)

2: The price posted should be a multiple of $0.05, $0.10, or $0.25

Problem solved.

shevy-java• 8 months ago

Hmm. I actually still like coins and paper money. However had in the EU, I don't like the 1 and 2 eurocent at all. These are just pointless really. I'd like a 5 euro coin and a 2 euro paper instead.

cachius• 8 months ago

This is just what the head of the bavarian mint Reinhard Riffel said recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlwvnQnJAtg&t=840s

Quote in German:

Aus unserer Sicht, das überrascht viele, wenn ich das sag, würde es Sinn machen, die 1 und 2 Cent Münzen abzuschaffen und durch eine 5 € Münze zu ersetzen. Lästig empfinden die meisten Menschen eigentlich nur diese braunen Münzen, weil die einfach keine Kaufkraft haben. Die liegen im Portemonnaie, aber man kann dafür nichts kaufen. Man kann bestenfalls die als Rückgeld nutzen. 1 und 2 € Münzen werden europaweit dieses Jahr [2025] so viele gemacht wie noch nie. Warum ist das so? Weil sie eine Kaufkraft haben, weil die verwendet werden und weil die nicht als lästig empfunden werden. Münzen sind für den Steuerzahler massiv günstiger. Ne 5 oder 10 € Banknote in der Herstellung oder in der Beschaffung für den Bund kostet in etwa so viel wie eine 2 € Münze, aber die 2 € Münze hält 20 Jahre und die 5 € Banknote hält 3 Monate. [...] Gerade die 5 und 10 € Banknoten sind extrem in Zirkulation; drei maximal sechs Monate, da sind die durch. Kann man sich ausrechnen, wie viel der Staat sparen würde, wenn man jetzt eine 5 € Münze einführen würde und die 5 € Banknote ersetzt.

Translation to English:

From our point of view, which surprises many when I say this, it would make sense to abolish the 1 and 2 cent coins and replace them with a 5 euro coin. Most people actually only find these brown coins annoying because they simply have no purchasing power. They lie in your wallet, but you can't buy anything with them. At best, they can be used as change. This year [2025], more 1 and 2 euro coins will be produced across Europe than ever before. Why is that? Because they have purchasing power, because they are used, and because they are not considered a nuisance. Coins are much cheaper for taxpayers. A €5 or €10 banknote costs about as much to produce or procure for the federal government as a €2 coin, but the €2 coin lasts 20 years and the €5 banknote lasts 3 months. [...] The €5 and €10 banknotes in particular are in extremely high circulation; they last three to six months at most. You can calculate how much the state would save if it introduced a €5 coin now to replace the €5 banknote.

zahlman24• 8 months ago

The last ever American penny (as the article text clarifies). Don't any other countries with a "dollar" use the same name for their 1-cent pieces?

The penny costs nearly four cents to mint, more than the coin’s worth.

Wow. I think it was only something like 1.5c (in the local market) when Canada gave up on them.

axiolite12• 8 months ago

penny-rounding “imposes a tax of $3.27 million Canadian dollars from consumers to grocery stores on a yearly basis in aggregate

https://economics.ubc.ca/news/penny-rounding-profitable-for-...

eliminating the penny would require producing more nickels to “fill the gap in small-value transactions.” But nickels suffer from a similar “seigniorage” problem: the 2024 U.S. Mint report said the five-cent coins have a unit cost of 13.78 cents each.

https://time.com/7215870/trump-us-penny-mint-costs-one-cent-...

whimsicalism• 8 months ago

i think ~5 cents per capita is a fine price to pay to never have to think about pennies again

kevincox2• 8 months ago

Especially since the lower cost means that we would save more than that 5 cents in taxes. (Well money is fungible so not really, but that money would be spent for some other government service.)

wasabi9910117• 8 months ago

Cool research, thanks for being one of the few to bring substantial arguments to this discussion.

For your first point, I would like to add the next sentence for context: "That means that a typical grocery store would receive an additional estimated $157 in revenue just from rounding." I feel like this is negligible.

Also, for the nickel, the seigniorage ratio is 2.something, isn't that lower than the penny? I think there's a decent chance that removing the penny would still be a net benefit for the mint.

more_corn• 8 months ago

I’d give you my 2c on the matter but now with the scarcity of a penny I’m not sure how to calculate the value.

permo-w• 8 months ago

"Last-ever" seems premature to me. I don't think the odds that there's a redomination or Trump decides he likes pennies are that low

thordenmark• 8 months ago

Can't retailers just price everything to the nearest $.05 to begin with so there is nothing to round? I guess tax percentages screw that up. Nevermind.

clarkmoody• 8 months ago

Can we stop changing our clocks twice a year as well?

water92• 8 months ago

When will they create a $200 bill or bring back the 500? I feel like the 50s is the new 20.

jrmg3• 8 months ago

In other countries that have eliminated pennies, was it done with more planning and advice from the government?

It strikes me as uniquely American (perhaps uniquely Trumpian) to just stop making them and let whatever happens happen with no detailed planning.

sequoia2• 8 months ago

Gas prices are frequently in fractions of a penny. This never matters because they round. Yep, rounding, in the real world, and the nation has not imploded. As pointed out by others Canada does this already and it's no issue.

gblargg4• 8 months ago

And whenever tax is added it's usually a fraction of a penny as well. Rounding has been with us for a long time.

mulmen10• 8 months ago

The argument that we should stop minting them because they cost more to produce than their face value falls flat for me.

A penny is not a single use item. The cost of production must be depreciated across the thousands of transactions in which it is used and then compared to the economic benefit of its existence.

It may be true that the economic benefit of a penny is less than the production cost but I don’t see anyone making that case.

What will it actually cost the US economy to stop minting these coins?

How long will they remain in circulation until they are no longer accepted for payment?

foxglacier• 8 months ago

the final coins pressed will be auctioned off and that the actual last pennies put into circulation from the US Mint were struck in June.

Seems like this is a stunt to extract a bit of money from collectors. I kind of wonder if collectors really value coins/stamps/etc. that were specially made to target the collector market and didn't even exist in the natural world. Feels icky.

reboot81• 8 months ago

My country quit using our (then) lowest denomination coin 32 years ago. Also worth 1/100 of a USD.

bentt• 8 months ago

So what you're telling me is that pennies are the new bitcoin. Fixed supply.

gblargg4• 8 months ago

Except they're backed by something of value (worth even more than a penny).

geophile• 8 months ago

This is a very minor but pleasant surprise. An action like this is beyond what I thought the US government (my government, sadly) was capable of. It is kind of puzzling to me that this issue, like every other one, didn't get politicized, with right wing talking heads bemoaning progress of any sort, appealing to the good old days, when America was great, the days that MAGAs want to return to.

It's a good start. Now let's do metric.

chuckreynolds• 8 months ago

Good. BYE. lol.

I_dream_of_Geni2• 8 months ago

The mighty penny is dead. Long live the penny!!

joshe• 8 months ago

I, for one, favor having a .1 cent piece, a third the size of a penny about the size of a shirt button.

Because San Francisco sales tax is 8.63 and something the costs 1 dollar is really 1.083. And I would like 91.7 bach cents when I give 2 dollars.

kazinator• 8 months ago

That seems weird. I mean, if you decide to abolish the penny, you just do it cold turkey. You don't set a date in the future and the continue making them, so that the last penny is accompanied by fanfare.

Trump announced via social media in February that he instructed the Mint to stop making the once-popular coin, citing the cost of production.

So between February and today, they just ignored the order?

What justified the pennies produced between February and November? Those pennies were necessary, and still cost-effective, but going forward, the penny as such is no longer necessary?

retrocog3• 8 months ago

Debasement through inflation steals from workers, pensioners, and savers. On the other hand, its great for big business and big government.

The money illusion fools many people into believing they've gained (ie real estate) when in reality, they've lost purchasing power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_illusion

jedberg3• 8 months ago

"What are we going to do about the rounding problem?!"

INCLUDE TAX IN THE PRICE, then you won't have a rounding problem!

The common argument against that is "but there are so many tax jurisdictions"

One, Europe has a bunch too and has solved this, and two, it would only apply to in person cash transactions. You should be able to figure out the tax rules for the one specific place the transaction is taking place.

rkomorn3• 8 months ago

Call me cynical but I don't at all believe the issue is tax jurisdictions or anything related to complexity.

It's that it's easier to show a price of $0.99 and have the consumer pay $1.08 (for example) than either show a price of $1.08 and have the consumer pay it, or show a price of $0.99 and have the consumer pay $0.99 and "lose" 7 cents (because your price was $0.92 before taxes).

Pre-tax price is lower and sells better than post-tax price.

jedberg3• 8 months ago

That wouldn't apply if everyone included tax in their prices. In this case, the item would just be $1.10.

If the business really thinks they will lose money by pricing over a dollar, then yes, they would have to take that hit. But they are already taking that hit if the "real value" is $1.02 for example.

It's just a price/demand curve. They would simply have to optimize it differently.

rendall2• 8 months ago

Ikr? It's like everyone thinks "It is simply not possible to set a price on an item so that its total price is a nice round number after tax is applied! One would need to... invent a special kind of math to do that!"

It's like the whole country is unwilling to calculate 1.065x=$2 or whatever.

And... why not include tax in the display price? I never did get a good explanation for that.

rendall2• 8 months ago

We should mint ₥ills. Really lean into useless currency.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_(currency)

WalterBright2• 8 months ago

I remember going to the drugstore and buying two pieces of candy for a penny each. I added a third for sales tax. The cashier handed back the penny because the tax didn't kick in until 10 cents.

WalterBright2• 8 months ago

I have a couple glass jars full of pennies. I think I'll just give them to the thrift store.

tonyhart7• 8 months ago

so its an NFT now???

axus• 8 months ago

Penny-wise and pound-foolish.

paulddraper• 8 months ago

The penny costs nearly four cents to mint, more than the coin’s worth.

To be clear, coins and bills are used far more than once.

I would even go so far as to say they are re-used hundreds of times.

donatj2• 8 months ago

I've got a ridiculous question, but hear me out.

Pennies have more zinc in them than they are worth, right?

Did the penny have any sort of stabling force against inflation… a sort of "Zinc Standard" as it were?

Civil libertarians are always talking about how moving away from gold coins, and later moving away from the gold standard that backed the non-gold coins is the root of inflation.

If gold can have such an effect, why not zinc?

connicpu2• 8 months ago

You can't legally melt down US coins for their metals

donatj2• 8 months ago

Even so, it has intrinsic value. A gold coin wouldn't become worthless just because the government stopped you from melting it. Same goes for a zinc coin.

I_dream_of_Geni2• 8 months ago

The mighty penny is dead. Long live the penny!!

kragen4• 8 months ago

Copper pennies weigh 3.11 grams. Copper is currently US$10987 per tonne https://www.metal.com/en/prices/LME_CA_3M so a copper penny is worth 3.4¢. This is a surprisingly low number to me; I would have expected it to be closer to 10¢ or 20¢, since presumably it was about 1¢ of copper when it was still copper.

By comparison, a silver dime (90% silver, 10% copper) is 2.268 grams, and silver is US$1486.77/kg https://www.metal.com/en/prices/201102250392, so the dime contains about US$3.03 worth of silver. From the point of view of an 18th- or 19th-century person, for whom the purpose of the mint was to certify the value of the precious metal in the coin by stamping it, the dollar has lost 29/30 (97%) of its value since minting of silver coins ended.

darknavi• 8 months ago

Pennies are not 100% copper any more. Mostly zinc.

kragen4• 8 months ago

I know. The non-copper pennies also don't weigh 3.11 grams. Dimes aren't silver anymore either.

anamexis3• 8 months ago

From the point of view of an 18th- or 19th-century person, for whom the purpose of the mint was to certify the value of the precious metal in the coin by stamping it

Was that the purpose of the mint? That would imply that the relative value of silver vs. copper was static.

kragen4• 8 months ago

It was, yes. The varying relative values of metals was in fact a huge problem for mints for many centuries. The problem was sometimes resolved by refusing to mint any but the priciest metal, and at other times by the values of different coins such as shillings and sovereigns varying relative to one another.

pfdietz• 8 months ago

A penny contains about .6 cents worth of zinc, so this was going to happen sooner or later.

nickpinkston• 8 months ago

If only Trump could get the daylight savings and the metrics system updates done too.

randyrand3• 8 months ago

I'm not sure why the article says this is so hard for retailers to figure out. They already round.

When they apply 7% sales tax to a $1.99 purchase, what do they charge you? $2.1293? Obviously not.

Just do whatever they already do.

jeremyjh2• 8 months ago

The article mentions several practical and legal issues, and your comment does not address any of them.

Also, "whatever they do" currently is rounding to two decimal places - that doesn't help us here. I'm not saying the software changes required are challenging, but I'm sure there are lots of POS systems that are not properly maintained anymore that will cause issues for a lot of smaller merchants.

randyrand3• 8 months ago

My comment is meant to be high level.

If you want a specific solution:

1. use a POS that supports rounding to the nearest 5 cents

2. ignore laws written assuming the penny is in production. they obviously need to be updated. judges are not idiots.

xboxnolifes• 8 months ago

The problem is that the rounding you are asking them to do is illegal in a few states.

techblueberry2• 8 months ago

I think we should issue a new dollar that’s 10x the value of the current dollar, and / 10 the value of everything. I mean it wouldn’t make a substantive difference, but psychologically, I think it would feel better if the mean value of the house in the US was 52k instead of 522k, and I could start carrying cash again and have 100 bucks not go by in like 2 fast food orders.

tvb12• 8 months ago

Would it feel better to see your bank account and pay checks shrink by 90%?

techblueberry2• 8 months ago

Yes, my brain like to think about weird things, and this for some reason is one of those weird things I like to think about, maybe it's just me, but my brain kinda likes small big numbers over big big numbers. Maybe because mentally it's like a giant fraction reduction across the entire economy.

janalsncm3• 8 months ago

Rounding seems to be a non issue to me. We already round: a 5% tax on something that costs $5.99 is technically $0.2995 which will be rounded to $0.30.

If there are no pennies you round to the nearest 5 cents. If there were no coins, you would round to the nearest dollar.

jxramos2• 8 months ago

What would it take to shift the balance of inflation to restore the purchasing power of the penny? Just out of curiosity how does a government and a people and their economy go the other direction?

alright25652• 8 months ago

Deflation is an economic disaster. The Great Depression, for example, was related to deflation.

jxramos2• 8 months ago

I don’t know one way or another but what specifically are the pain points of deflation and how do those compare to the never ending inflation? I’ve lived under inflation all my life, it’s a slow creeping nearly sub threshold insidious process that erodes the value of money. Buy what is life like under deflation, is there pain but ultimate correction to a sane state? It feels like there is no correction to inflation.

jonstewart• 8 months ago

10 for 1 split on USD.

jameslk• 8 months ago

Salami slicing stimulus package

tomcam• 8 months ago

I am uneasy about it for no logical reason. I have an emotional attachment to pennies because as a not rich kid in the 60s, even finding a penny brightened my day. Back then they sold "penny candy", for example a roll of Smarties, and it was actually a penny. There were maybe half a dozen options. You absolutely could bring a buck in and get hundred pieces of candy, modulo the 6% sales tax in SoCal.

Middle school in the mid 70s: a penny rolls around the corner and I pick it up. A school bully and his friends taunted me at length. They'd launched it hoping I'd do exactly what I did. I just thought to myself, one day I'll be a fucking millionaire and you'll still be a squib. That came true. I am damaged enough to be smug about it to this day.

The next year that same kid and his friends beat me up, giving me a TBI, a permanent hole in my memory, and what apparently was a new personality. Twenty years later he was found dead in a dumpster. When I heard about it I did not weep for him. That is of course my defect. I am not proud of my perpetual grievance.

I saved spare change in jars until my 50s, and every once in a while took them to the bank and bought something cool, or just took them out and played with them with my kids.

So for me pennies are some kind of odd little vestige of control over my life. Completely inane, I get it. They're annoying af and too expensive to manufacture. Everything's electronic anyway these days. I'll miss them though.

insane_dreamer• 8 months ago

It's absolutely bonkers how long it took the US to get rid of the penny.

shmerl• 8 months ago

Some merchants plan to round prices to the nearest nickel, often a penny or two more

Prices should never have been set to this dumb #.99 pattern anyway. It's one of the most annoying things.

abstractspoon• 8 months ago

A classic example of - the less important something is, the more people will have an opinion

J_McQuade• 8 months ago

Absolute bullshit title. The USA has stopped making one-cent coins, and they don't even call them pennies in any meaningful way.

The "last-ever" penny will not be minted until that final coin has been minted by:

The United Kingdom

Gibraltar

Man

St Helena & Ascension Island

Guernsey

The Falklands

and probably a good few of others I've forgotten. Like Jersey.

arlattimore• 8 months ago

In 1990, Australia stopped minting 1c and 2c coins & rounding to 5c.

It worked out just fine.

Everyone move on.

tppiotrowski• 8 months ago

I remember thinking there's a small arbitrage opportunity in countries that don't have pennies and nickels. In NZ I believe stores round to the nearest decimal (.02, .01 => .00 and .03, .04 => .05). They lose on some sales but gain on others. However, they don't round if you use a CC.

Here's one for the FIRE folks: if it rounds up, use a CC and if it rounds down use cash. Use all those pennies you save using your CC to retire 3 minutes early.

cjwilliams• 8 months ago

Dimes and 50 cents only please

paulmooreparks3• 8 months ago

What I've seen in places that eliminated .01 coins is that the .05 coin begins to be the one that everyone hates. I remember walking around Amsterdam several years ago with pockets full of .05 coins, and the same thing happens now in Singapore. They tend to get dumped into self-checkout machines in grocery stores.

everdev• 8 months ago

If they're stopping production of the penny because it costs more to mint each one than each is worth, that's a stupid reason. Why does everything have to be about making money? Can't we just have useful things without worrying about how profitable they are?

mwcz• 8 months ago

We do lots of things that are unprofitable, and we should probably do more than we do. But they should be things that bring non-monetary value into the world. Pennies do not bring non-monetary value into the world.

didip• 8 months ago

We should stop printing physical money and just start making payments digitally everywhere.

stevage8• 8 months ago

It's so strange to start with "stop minting pennies" but not "stop pennies being legal tender".

But then as an Australian it also seems very weird to even have pennies in circulation. We ditched ours in the 80s.

varenc3• 8 months ago

It'd certainly make less sense to stop them being legal tender if you're still minting them.

Also in Australia, while no store would accept the old pennies, I had thought they were still legal tender in the sense that banks would still accept them and allow you to deposit the old pennies?

stevage8• 8 months ago

Yes. I'm not sure if legal tender is the correct term but yes.

Many stores now do not accept cash of any kind.

nixpulvis4• 8 months ago

I mean, it makes numbers weird if you can't have less than a nickel. Tax could be designed to ensure prices are in increments of 5¢. And interest rates, etc.

Rounding to whole numbers feels more natural to people than rounding to 5¢. But ultimately it's the same thing.

stevage8• 8 months ago

The way you're framing this sounds like no other country has ever gone through the process of removing their 1 and 2 cent coins. Many have. It's fine. None of this is a problem.

It does work better if there's a bit of planning though.

OwlGoesHoot• 8 months ago

Finally, something I can get behind

nixpulvis4• 8 months ago

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Banker's Rounding in here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45223778/is-bankers-roun...

ycombigrator• 8 months ago

*American

BobbyTables22• 8 months ago

Even the IRS doesn’t mind rounding to the nearest dollar.

Let that sink in…

martin82• 8 months ago

This sounds it will be a milestone recorded in the history books in the chapter of the accelerating downfall of the US empire into hyperinflation...

jedimastert• 8 months ago

The US is not even close to the first modern country to move away from single cent coins, and there are many examples of others that don't have "hyperinflation", for example the Netherlands, Italy, and Canada.

People have been talking about getting rid of the penny for decades.

opentokix• 8 months ago

Oh no! What will DIY-people use now to make the ugliest floors known to man?

listic• 8 months ago

Sometimes, they return.

Recently, I read a post by an online musician friend that someone made a tip of 5 rubles with a banknote in Armenia - too low a sum to bother exchanging it in a foreign country. I was perplexed [1] because I don't recall ever [2] seeing such banknote - the lowest I remember seeing was 10 - and found that yes, it was introduced in 1998, discontinued and withdrawn from circulation in 2001 due to inflation and apparently reintroduced (maybe briefly?) in December 2022/January 2023.

I don't know why.

[1] https://www.perplexity.ai/search/in-post-soviet-russia-when-...

[2] I am Russian; born in 1977 and left the country in December, 2022.

mikhailfranco• 8 months ago

The lowest value coin still in use is the Uzbek Tiyin (0.01 UZS).

So 1,200,000 Tiyins to the USD.

amelius• 8 months ago

At this point I'm surprised our president doesn't force the exclusive use of cryptocurrencies.

syngrog66• 8 months ago

We do NOT know it will be the last-ever penny minted.

Untruths like that grind my gears. Especially in the US of 2025 where we are awash in a sea of lies, stressful incitement and hype (all by intent, by bad actors.)

nektro• 8 months ago

in a certain timeline this would be our warning inflation is getting out of hand...

balderdash• 8 months ago

Why can’t we do a reverse split of our currency? Print new dollars and change and on some date new dollar is the effective currency and you can trade in 10 old dollars for one new dollar?

kedikedi• 8 months ago

Turkey did it some years ago (2005). Removed six zeroes and named it something like “new lira”. Then named it back to “lira” after most of the old money is out of circulation.

20 years later, I think some more zeroes are available to be removed :)

fred_is_fred• 8 months ago

What would the net outcome of this be besides smaller denominations having more value?

sota_pop• 8 months ago

Dangit, now I’ll have to start buying fuses for my electrical panel.

FarmerPotato• 8 months ago

Removing pennies from retail is a software job at least as time-consuming as: Y2K or converting to Euro (yes, as a US programmer, it gave me a lot of work and missed holidays.)

For one, think of all the POS systems stuck on old firmware. These are the details.

Sure a lot of "easy" solutions come to mind.

TrnsltLife• 8 months ago

Time to start chopping nickels into pieces of five.

The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

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