Should We Get Rid of The Penny?

[BLLDoesTech]

So I'm writing a paper and was wondering what other people think on this topic.

Other than the main arguments you see everywhere does anyone have reasons why?

[straight_stewie]

4 minutes ago, BLLDoesTech said:

Other than the main arguments you see everywhere does anyone have reasons why? 

Because people are lazy and don't care if they drop them. Therefore I find roughly $80 USD of mostly pennies just lying on the ground, ripe for the picking, every year. And I don't live in a very large town.

[circeseye]

not sure thou how it will work out..companies wont be able to do the whole 19.99 anymore...and taxes and such will have to be rounded out to the 5 cent

[Teddy07]

So that companies will round up all prices? Because you know they will take advantage of that.

[Guest]

I like the take a penny or leave a penny system. Its rather cute.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I rarely use cash anymore. A penny is such a tiny percentage of the price of items anymore it's no longer relevant. It also costs a little over twice the value of the penny to make them.

[BLLDoesTech]

6 minutes ago, James Evens said:

Paper?

serious why does people start using this forum for there uni work

 

Btw. good luck to get it accepted when using such sources.

lol, already written, just wanna see what other people think about the subject

[dalekphalm]

14 minutes ago, BLLDoesTech said:

So I'm writing a paper and was wondering what other people think on this topic.

Other than the main arguments you see everywhere does anyone have reasons why?

Yes, assuming you're American. It currently costs more than $0.01 per penny to manufacture, so you're actually literally losing money by making a penny that has a value of less than it cost to produce.

 

Canada ditched the Penny several years ago, and it's honestly worked out great.

 

First: Ditching the penny doesn't ditch $0.01. If you pay for a product with credit or debit, you'll pay the exact price.

 

If you pay with Cash, retailers will just round up or down to the nearest $0.05. This means occasionally you'll pay an extra cent or two, but also occasionally you'll pay less too. It should basically balance out.

 

Plus, if you're like me and never carry cash, there's literally no difference.

 

Lastly, if you got rid of the penny, it's still currency. That means any leftover pennies are still money. You can still buy things with them. It's just that the government won't manufacture new pennies, and will slowly take them out of circulation (At which point they can be melted down and sold as recycled material or used for something else). Businesses would still be required to accept pennies as money, since some small amount of pennies will likely stay in circulation for years afterwards.

[dalekphalm]

13 minutes ago, circeseye said:

not sure thou how it will work out..companies wont be able to do the whole 19.99 anymore...and taxes and such will have to be rounded out to the 5 cent

 

13 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

So that companies will round up all prices? Because you know they will take advantage of that.

 

Getting rid of the penny would not change prices. And if you paid with Debit or Credit Cards (extremely common in Canada - maybe less so in America), you'll pay that exact amount, with no rounding.

 

Canada already did this and there was no "disaster" that the penny-keeper crowd warned about.

[SansVarnic]

28 minutes ago, BLLDoesTech said:

So I'm writing a paper and was wondering what other people think on this topic.

Other than the main arguments you see everywhere does anyone have reasons why?

Do you mean the physical or representational penny. Physically I can see arguments for both keeping and ridding ourselves of it. Dismissing the penny entirely? would not be a good idea as monetization still requires the $0.01. @dalekphalm explains it pretty well.

 

This issue has been debated on and off for a number of years now;

https://www.bing.com/search?q=should+we+ditch+the+penny%3F&PC=U316&FORM=CHROMN

but it is come down to standstill debate almost. As inflation continues to raise prices and cost of living the penny becomes less useful as does the dollar but unfortunately you cant make accurate change without either.

 

I for one say we keep it but I understand why it could go away. 

[TetraSky]

We got rid of it in Canada and we're all for the better without it.

@dalekphalm pretty much said it all.

 

Honestly, I've been paying nearly exclusively by card for 10+ years now.
The only time I have "cash" on me these days, is when someone decides to pay me in cash for some insane reason and I don't feel like depositing it...

[Ravendarat]

I’m in Canada, I do still use cash all the time and I LOVE not having the penny. I haven’t seen a single financial effect on myself and very much enjoy not getting it back in change, the rounding up/down thing balances out fairly well it seems, and as a country we are no longer wasting money minting a coin that costs more to produce than it represents 

[minibois]

The euro's lowest worth coins are the 1 cent and 2 cent coins, followed by 5 cents, 10 cents.. etc.

In the Netherlands though (maybe other places too) we don't use the 1 and 2 cent coins at all,they are of course legal tender; but not used (not given out by stores and while legally accepted; it is kind of taboo to use here). When you go to a neighboring country (Belgium and France in particular) these coins are used; so it's kind of a game to keep the least amount of these 1 and 2 cent coins when you leave those countries, because they are not useful in NL.

 

The reasons for not using them are basically the obvious ones.

The way we get around this with prices is... Well most people pay by card nowadays. But in the event someone does use cash money, we have some ways to get around this penny thing and that is just to round the prices.

We do this with kind of the basic "round to the nearest divisible by 5 penny amount"-thing.

0,46 euros = 0,45 euros. 0,48 euros = 0,50 euros (comma being a decimal point, of course).

 

Stores (unless they operate on a pay by card basis only.. Like online stores, or when they are an online/retail store) tend to avoid these numbers, so they don't end up with too much/little in the counter at the end of the day.

The reason online stores still use these penny numbers is because that way they end up at the top of the page with price comparisons (0,98 euros beats 0,99 euros, which beats a listing price of 1,00 euros)

Edited January 31, 2019 by Minibois
Fixed the rounding numbers

[Ravendarat]

5 minutes ago, Minibois said:

The euro's lowest worth coins are the 1 cent and 2 cent coins, followed by 5 cents, 10 cents.. etc.

In the Netherlands though (maybe other places too) we don't use the 1 and 2 cent coins at all,they are of course legal tender; but not used (not given out by stores and while legally accepted; it is kind of taboo to use here). When you go to a neighboring country (Belgium and France in particular) these coins are used; so it's kind of a game to keep the least amount of these 1 and 2 cent coins when you leave those countries, because they are not useful in NL.

 

The reasons for not using them are basically the obvious ones.

The way we get around this with prices is... Well most people pay by card nowadays. But in the event someone does use cash money, we have some ways to get around this penny thing and that is just to round the prices.

We do this with kind of the basic "round to the nearest divisible by 5 penny amount"-thing.

0,46 euros = 0,45 euros. 0,47 euros = 0,50 euros (comma being a decimal point, of course).

 

Stores (unless they operate on a pay by card basis only.. Like online stores, or when they are an online/retail store) tend to avoid these numbers, so they don't end up with too much/little in the counter at the end of the day.

The reason online stores still use these penny numbers is because that way they end up at the top of the page with price comparisons (0,98 euros beats 0,99 euros, which beats a listing price of 1,00 euros)

Don’t you mean .46 and .47 round to .45 and then .48 and .49 round to .50? Or are they really only rounding down the .46?

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, Minibois said:

The euro's lowest worth coins are the 1 cent and 2 cent coins, followed by 5 cents, 10 cents.. etc.

In the Netherlands though (maybe other places too) we don't use the 1 and 2 cent coins at all,they are of course legal tender; but not used (not given out by stores and while legally accepted; it is kind of taboo to use here). When you go to a neighboring country (Belgium and France in particular) these coins are used; so it's kind of a game to keep the least amount of these 1 and 2 cent coins when you leave those countries, because they are not useful in NL.

 

The reasons for not using them are basically the obvious ones.

The way we get around this with prices is... Well most people pay by card nowadays. But in the event someone does use cash money, we have some ways to get around this penny thing and that is just to round the prices.

We do this with kind of the basic "round to the nearest divisible by 5 penny amount"-thing.

0,46 euros = 0,45 euros. 0,47 euros = 0,50 euros (comma being a decimal point, of course).

 

Stores (unless they operate on a pay by card basis only.. Like online stores, or when they are an online/retail store) tend to avoid these numbers, so they don't end up with too much/little in the counter at the end of the day.

The reason online stores still use these penny numbers is because that way they end up at the top of the page with price comparisons (0,98 euros beats 0,99 euros, which beats a listing price of 1,00 euros)

Just pointing out that $0.47 would be rounded down to $0.45.

 

$0.48 and $0.49 would both be rounded up to $0.50.

 

At least, that's how standard rounding works (and how we do it in Canada). That is, unless your country has adopted non-standard rounding for their currency.

[minibois]

Just now, Ravendarat said:

Don’t you mean .46 and .47 round to .45 and then .48 and .49 round to .50? Or are they really only rounding down the .46?

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Just pointing out that $0.47 would be rounded down to $0.45.

 

$0.48 and $0.49 would both be rounded up to $0.50.

 

At least, that's how standard rounding works (and how we do it in Canada). That is, unless your country has adopted non-standard rounding for their currency.

Bleh, it's way too late too work with numbers for myself.. Indeed, 0,47 euros = 0,45 euros. 

 

[jiyeon]

Here in Scotland, the penny is arguably the most iconic coin next to the pound, a lot of prices here utilise the single-digits that a penny can be valuable for.

 

I'm slowly becoming a person who uses full-time card only because honestly, I don't care if I drop 1p or 2p, they're not valuable enough to spend 5 seconds bending down to pick back up again.

 

That being said though, I do tend to try get rid of my pennies as much as possible, such as giving them to my parents for gas money, since gas prices tend to utilise the penny the best in my view.

[kelvinhall05]

4 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

Because people are lazy and don't care if they drop them. Therefore I find roughly $80 USD of mostly pennies just lying on the ground, ripe for the picking, every year. And I don't live in a very large town.

8,000 pennies? Somehow I doubt that, but, to be fair, the US Mint produces that many pennies in about 8 seconds.

[Andreas Lilja]

Liquid cash should be abolished.

[Guest]

I was going to give some reasons, but they were already listed and already some of the obvious. However, I believe that since the value per piece is so small, paying with them takes too much time to sort out the right amount. With the value of money nowadays, a penny really doesn't make a difference. Really the only coin I even use is the quarter. On the other hand, the penny and the dime look the prettiest to me. I like the copper color of a new one if it isn't rusted.

[zassou]

 i havent used paper money for more than a year i guess.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I carry paper "mad money" in case my plastic fails me but it rarely gets used. I keep some change in my truck just in case but I can't remember the last time I used it.

[straight_stewie]

3 hours ago, kelvinhall05 said:

8,000 pennies? Somehow I doubt that, but, to be fair, the US Mint produces that many pennies in about 8 seconds.

Mostly pennies. I find a few pennies everyday. That plus all the other money I find lying about yields me about $80 a year. And this is in a town of only ~30,000 people.

The amount of pennies I find in a year is more accurately resembled by whatever amount fits in an almost full gallon pickle jar.

[XR6]

In Wales we use pennies quite often. Since only big stores take cards most of the time, we always have paper money and change on hand. 

It may work out for other countries but in the UK (or at least in Wales) I don't think we should get rid of the penny. At the moment we depend on them too much to get rid of them.

[Guest]

I usually just use notes or large coins and put the small coins in a donation bin.