Is it time for the United States to pitch the penny?

[Amy SF]

As somebody who has had a coin collection since childhood, I have to admit I'm a little sentimental about that poor little one-cent piece, but even so, it seems like a waste to continue producing them when nobody wants to use them anymore. They collect in drawers and in jars. No machine will take them anymore. Nothing costs a penny anymore, and hasn't for a long time. They take too long to count and add up when you want to take them to the bank, dump them into a Coinstar machine, or use them to pay for something.

It costs the US two cents to mint each penny, twice its face value. This means that ditching the penny can save $58 million, which the US spent on minting pennies in 2012. (Source: Farmer's Almanac for the year 2014 of Lewiston, Maine)

Canada stopped minting their pennies in 2012, and many other countries such as Australia and New Zealand have also stopped minting pennies. Because cash is used less and less in favor of plastic and digital payments, fewer people have the need to carry a lot of change around, and when leaving change at home, the penny is the first to go.

I am always picking pennies up off the floor or ground because nobody else can be bothered to stoop to pick up the Rodney Dangerfield of coinage. I recently took a couple of jars of pennies, along with some dimes and nickels, to the drugstore and dumped everything into a Coinstar machine. It took a while to get all the pennies in because they didn't all go down the chute right away and some of them kept popping out of the coin return and I had to retrieve them and get them back into the chute to be counted. What a pain! (ETA: In case anyone was wondering, I opted for an Amazon voucher so I wouldn't be charged a fee to use the machine.)

You can't even give pennies to little kids anymore. They're too sophisticated, and too aware of economic inflation. They don't want pennies. Dimes, nickels, quarters, dollars. That's what they want.

So, what are your feelings about the penny? Keep it or pitch it?

 

[Blobbenstein]

we still have pennies, AND tuppence pieces(2pence), in the UK...We used to have half pennies when I was a kid.

 

[RascalsMom]

I work at a bank so I see lots of pennies. I think people would adjust well without them, but the price of stuff would go up a few cents, and tax probably too. (If you weren't minting pennies, purches could be something like $36.97. The cents would have to be something you could pay with nickels and above.)

 

[RascalsMom]

Purchases totals couldn't be*

 

[thefadedone]

You can't even give pennies to little kids anymore. They're too sophisticated, and too aware of economic inflation. They don't want pennies. Dimes, nickels, quarters, dollars. That's what they want.

I'll take them! I love finding random pennies. Every little bit counts. Those stray unwanted pennies eventually add up and will come in handy at some point.

When I was younger my brother and I would play a game with our parents where we went on "scavenger hunt" for pennies and other lose change. We would search the couch, the car, the parking lot, etc. looking for pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters. Then we would gather up all the coins we found and go down to the corner store and buy things like penny candy, ice pops and other snacks. It was a fun game. Years later I realized that we mostly played that game because we didn't have the extra money for those things otherwise.

I vote keep them. Or just give them to me if you don't want them.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

I hate them and want them to go away. The sooner the better.

 

[Renee1]

We stopped using pennies at the beginning of the year in Canada. It's pretty ******* great.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

We stopped using pennies at the beginning of the year in Canada. It's pretty ****ing great.

I was a little confused at first, but then when I remembered there were no more pennies there, I liked it.

 

[Renee1]

I mean to say, they're still valid and you can pay with them if you want to but you're not getting any back and the Mint stopped throwing their money away by producing them. Depending on the total, the business rounds up or down. You win a few or lose a few. All evens out in the end.

 

[Forster]

All coins ought to go except the quarter.

 

[Amy SF]

I think if we did away with the US version of the penny people would eventually adapt. It might take a while, but they would. We could adopt the same ideas Canada did. If the amount is not a zero or 5, you round up or down. And that's only paying with cash. If you pay with plastic or digital (as lots of people do nowadays), you still pay the exact amount. And pennies would still be legal tender as long as you had possession of them. This would actually encourage people not to basically throw them away but hold on to them and collect them to use.

 

[Envy]

We stopped using our equivalent of that back in 1992.

 

[Amy SF]

We stopped using our equivalent of that back in 1992.

Did anyone notice?

 

[Wolfie]

Our government has no idea how to pinch pennies.

 

[Spang]

The PX at Yongsan doesn't use pennies.

 

[Everleigh]

I think I'd rather not have them if it saves the government money.But I admit that I do cash them in sometimes to use for emergencies.

 

[das_nut]

Why not make the penny out of a cheaper material?

 

[Amy SF]

Why not make the penny out of a cheaper material?

I think this was tried with the nickel, but it was a disaster; hence the popular warning "Don't take any wooden nickels." You don't want to leave those things near a fireplace.

 

[das_nut]

I think this was tried with the nickel, but it was a disaster; hence the popular warning "Don't take any wooden nickels." You don't want to leave those things near a fireplace.

I wonder what the real story behind a wooden nickel is. Ah, yes, here it is. But what about plugged nickels?

 

[Mischief]

I'm not saying we shouldn't do what is most cost effective. However, there is something very cheerful about a bright, shiny penny that I would miss.