Over the years, media coverage occasionally ramps up around what I think of as the Great Penny Debate: whether to discontinue the U.S. one-cent denomination. The issue was covered on 60 Minutes a few weeks back, and now it’s showing up in an excellent New Yorker article. The heart of the issue is that pennies cost more than one cent to make, so why not stop making them? There’s also some disagreement as to the efficiency (and thus cost) of counting out change using pennies — wouldn’t rounding to the nearest five cents be faster? Given the prevalence of “take-a-penny” dishes at many checkout counters, it seems that cashiers already prefer rounding than dealing with pennies.
Countries (including the U.S., with the 1857 elimination of the half-penny) have discontinued low-denomination coins before, so it’s not a far-fetched notion to think that the penny’s days are numbered. But the actual issue aside, this whole penny discussion is jam-packed with trivia about coins and metallurgy. The New Yorker piece linked above brings us some great tidbits. I’ve gone ahead and collected some of its best factoids for your reading pleasure:
A penny minted before 1982 is ninety-five per cent copper — which, at recent prices, is approximately two and a half cents’ worth.
…More recent [pennies] are ninety-seven and a half per cent zinc.
Nickels, despite their silvery appearance, are seventy-five per cent copper.
Canadian five-cent coins … were a hundred per cent nickel most years from 1946 to 1981.
Primarily because zinc [in addition to copper] has soared in value, producing a penny now costs about 1.7 cents.
…The Treasury incurs an annual penny deficit of about fifty million dollars — a condition known in the coin world as “negative seigniorage.”
Breaking stride to pick up a penny, if it takes more than 6.15 seconds, pays less than the federal minimum wage.
…Eliminating pennies would increase our reliance on nickels, which now cost almost ten cents to manufacture….
There’s much more to the article than these bits of trivia, so I encourage you to read it in full. Also, the article mentions people “throwing away” pennies. Really? Dear readers, please tell me if you’ve been throwing away pennies. I toss mine in a jar, but never the trash.
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Is the penny’s lack of value a symptom of the Federal Reserve’s debasement of the currency? The elite distract us talking about the penny when the dollar has lost almost all of its value since 1913. Inflation is a tax on the poor and middle class. Debasement usually precedes an empire’s collapse. Talking about pennies is a waste of time. Talk about worthless dollars instead!
posted by reinkefj on 3-26-2008 at 9:30 pm
I have thrown out pennies before. When I am cleaning up, and there is a penny mixed in with a bunch of ickies, I just toss ‘em. But I am a little OCD and if I pick em up then I’ll have to wash them and…it’s a whole “Give a Mouse a Cookie” thing.
posted by Amanda on 3-26-2008 at 10:27 pm
In Australia we did away with 1 & 2 cent coins as well at $1 & $2 notes (replaced with coins). There were a few grumblings from some people at the time but it really did streamline things. As someone who had a job cointing money at the time I can say it was very welcome!
posted by Carmen on 3-26-2008 at 11:12 pm
I remember when I lived in the Netherlands back in the ’90′s. Before they switched over to the Euro. At that time they no longer had the equivalent of penny in their system either. Coming from America, it was a bit odd, because prices didn’t reflect the lack of a penny (for example, a soda might still cost .89) so you never knew what to pay. Sometimes you got a nickel back, sometimes you didn’t.
I really couldn’t care if they kept the penny or not. It would be a change (ha!) but we’d all get over it.
As for the dollar, yeah its dropping like a rock, but I don’t think it costs more than $1 to print a dollar.
posted by Florida on 3-27-2008 at 7:27 am
According to the Simpsons, we all know that they still distribute the penny to collect DNA samples of everyone in the U.S.
posted by John on 3-27-2008 at 8:36 am
Sadly, yes, I have thrown away pennies. I would be in favor of getting rid of them, they do weigh down a coin purse so. :o)
posted by Kirsten on 3-27-2008 at 9:02 am
The New Yorker article is really good.
What’s most interesting to me, more than everything else, is the US’s resistance to change (no pun intended). So many other countries have gotten rid of the penny, nickel, or even dime, and lots of countries have gotten rid of the $1 bill, having dollar coins instead. It seems much more logical and affordable. A lot of money is spent churning out $1 year after year, when the New Yorker article mentioned that a penny stays in circulation often for more than 30 years. It doesn’t wear out.
posted by Jenny on 3-27-2008 at 10:57 am
I’m not sure why we still use paper and coin money at all. I don’t see any reason we couldn’t just go to having everything being account based. Your pay could be directly credited to your account, and you could use a card (and maybe some sort of paper checks to pay for things that don’t have access to a card system). The mints wouldn’t need to pay to print money at all. Plus, I think it would help reduce crime,too. Criminals love cash transactions and hate paper trails. I’m certainly not saying people who like cash are criminals, just that it would make criminal activity harder to conduct and easier to trace. As for the identity theft issue that would be made worse, well, it’s bad already. We need to find better ways to prevent that anyhow. So much of society has gone to using cards and electronic payments to pay for things anyway, we should really go cashless completely. I would say less than a quarter of the purchases made by customers at my store are made with physical cash. Paper and metal money is outdated in our modern society.
posted by Melissa on 3-27-2008 at 11:10 am
I used to work on a U.S. military base and they didn’t use pennies at the BX/PX. I thought it was a wonderful thing.
posted by Bob on 3-27-2008 at 11:28 am
I lived overseas from 1990-2004, living on various military bases. On Base, the PX’s, BX’s, commissary’s, and restaurants do not used pennies for returning change. You could use them to buy products (as it is still viable cash), but you would not get the pennies back in your change. Everything was either rounded up or down. (You could use them at the post office, as the federal government wants each and every penny owed to them) I asked the bank manager why (as well as seen a few AFN commercials with the explanation). Pennies are heavy for transport, a pain the butt to count, roll and keep in the safe inventory, so it was decided that they would not be used. After the intial shock of not getting my “full” change back, eventually, I forgot they even existed until I came back to the states. Now I am overrun with pennies, in jars, piggy banks, etc. I do pick them up when I see them and add them to the jar, but I don’t “use” them a currency (i.e. count out to pay a bill). If doing away with the penny with save the government money that could be used for something else, I would not miss them….
posted by Michelle on 3-27-2008 at 11:29 am
I’ve thrown away pennies. I guess that makes me a typical wasteful American… but they’re so useless. Really, if I saved up the ones that accumulate at the bottom of my baseball bag or my backpack, I could save up a couple bucks… but would it be worth the trouble to go get them changed into good money?
I also once paid for something using 100 pennies. It says something when using a piece of currency is considered an insult. The cashier was ticked!
I say get rid of the useless things.
posted by Moseph on 3-27-2008 at 11:42 am
You don’t want your pennies..give them to me! Money is money!
posted by beth on 3-27-2008 at 2:37 pm
In regards to Melissa’s comment – in the book of Revelations it does speak about the use of a one-world currency. Just something your comment made me think of.
And yes – I do throw away pennies b/c I think they are a waste.
posted by Lorie on 3-27-2008 at 3:34 pm
Here in New Zealand, our lowest coin is 10c! Recently they changed all of our coins to smaller (in size) ones and did away with 5c – we hadn’t had 1c or 2c for ages.
posted by Kadee on 4-1-2008 at 6:43 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnsvhFffgRI
posted by balla7774 on 1-3-2011 at 7:16 pm