How many pennies do you have just lying around the house, not being used? I can answer that, TOO MANY! The use of pennies should be discontinued in the United States. Pennies are more trouble than they are worth, literally. They are costing the United States more money than they are even worth.
Pennies are putting the United States into more debt than we are already in. It actually costs more to make a penny than a penny is worth. Every penny costs about 2.41 cents to produce and distribute. (Source 1). Taxpayers are losing money, “The taxpayers--lost $60.2 million dollars,” a direct quote from Source 1. Plus, the losses in money that the U.S. is facing is quickly increasing. We lost $27.4 million in 2010, and $19.8 million in 2009.
People
Getting rid of the penny is good for the economy because it would save the government on average 60 million dollars a year. Evidence that supports this claim is, “Pennies may not be big money, even if you add them together. But we are paying a cost for the privilege of squirreling
Nickels cost about 6.20 cents to make. According to the spruce.com, making each Nickel cost about 0.60 cents more than making each penny. If we get rid of the penny and start using the nickel for the lowest cent we would always get change back if the cost would be what you by is $2.11 we would not be able to pay with a penny.
Money is crucial in many ways or everyday events like for buying food, paying rent, etc. Money has its own value but not all currency is used. Money has its own value but not all currency is used. The penny has the least amount of currency and is found on the sidewalk, sofa, in between car seats because nobody benefits form the penny. It doesn't have enough value to be kept around so lets just end the penny ones and for all.
I mean, just think about it logically. Today, the average penny costs 2.4 cents to produce while the coin itself is only worth one cent. Dr. Robert Whaple, a professor at Wake Forest also agrees with this statement. He thinks that eliminating the penny won’t just save time, but also money (source #2)
Though some parties may claim that the penny holds value to the United States, majority of the arguments presented are invalid or out of date. Examples such as the man who has saved “90 pennies a day” (Source B) are an extreme case that cannot be used to argue for continuation of the penny. In the average lifespan of an American denizen, it is improbable that one will have the time to collect this many pennies. In addition, on order for this man to reach his grand total of $13,084.59 took about forty years, making this argument illogical as the process is time consuming and one can save even more by simply collecting larger denomination coins. In addition, arguments made those countries such as the “EU … and Canada” that have kept their “penny”
The shiny deep chocolate brown colored coins that we may all tend to use on the daily are in consideration of being eliminated by the US Congress from the United States currency system. Although the possible elimination of pennies may mean more to some than others, it does not mean that pennies should be fully removed from the United States currency system. It just does not seem reasonable to remove a coin that is used by many American civilians each and every day. For starters, pennies can be used for many good causes and to help many different people. At Washington Middle School, a penny drive was held to donate to charity and as a result, $3000 was raised in just one week.
Between 2001 and 2006, there has been an increase of .6 cents for the reproduction of the penny. This increase displays economic problems that may lead to fatal ones. The penny is composed of 2% copper and 98% zinc. These elements are exponentially in demand causing the price of these materials to skyrocket. Many Americans think the penny is putting our country in jeopardy with financial losses. This meaningless coin is losing money for the mint, and should be abolished.
In recent times the U.S. penny has become a heated topic for debate. The issue people debate is whether the U.S. mint should discontinue the penny. Most Americans seem to have a definite opinion about this topic. Both sides of the argument have increasing support and a numerous amount of legitimate reasons to support their argument. In my opinion pennies are a nuisance and do not really offer enough value, therefore the U.S. Mint should discontinue the production of the penny.
The United States either seems to be unaware or choose to be unaware of every other nation not only eliminating pennies, but some also eliminating coins, even their neighbor Canada. It's true our past have taught us a lot and brought us here. We can't turn our backs on our past as a nation because we have to reflect back in order to move on, successfully. However, in the case of this nation, our past is in our way of moving on, the sentimental attachment to the penny will lead us astray if we hold on to it. Other countries have eliminated pennies because it's both a waste of time and money, so I suggest we do the same. Instead of eliminating the penny to make a greater use of the
The penny is way too established into the american lifestyle to eliminate it from the american society. The removal of the penny would attract too much unnecessary effort that won't benefit, but harm the economy and the people. Source E shows a majority of 2,136 people surveyed voting to keep the penny. 59% vote in opposition of abolishing the penny. Abolishing it is basically impractical. “Up until 1982, pennies were made mostly of copper; since then they have been 97.5% zinc” (Lewis). Since the recreation of penny to primarily be composed of Zinc, The price for production has dropped significantly. In 2011 the price to produce a cent was 2.41 cents and dropped to 1.67 cents as of 2014 (Wikipedia). Though completely eliminating the penny
Pennies cost “2.41 cents to produce and distribute” (Source 1) while only being worth one cent. Since pennies are only worth 1 cent, through the evidence provided one is able to conclude that they cost roughly 2 times more to make than what they are worth. Pennies have an uneven cost to worth value which is unfair to taxpayers that rarely use the coin. This uneven production cost to worth ratio is costing also taxpayers “$60.2 million dollars… [according to] the 2011 fiscal year” (Source 1). American taxpayers are wasting their hard earned money on pennies that they don’t even use!
What would we do with the 250 billion pennies in circulation? That means that 2 to 2.5 billion dollars would be wasted, and worthless. 2.5 billion dollars could be used to help several great causes. The average penny costs 1.67 cents to make so that means that approximately 417.5 billion dollars will be wasted if we decide to abolish the penny (7 Penny Facts). That would make a substantial difference in the lives of many people. Today to try to keep costs down the penny is made from 97.5% zinc and a little copper just for the appearance (Lewis). Many people that are against the penny say that we should get rid of the penny because, “it costs more money to be produced than what the penny is actually worth.” The truth really would be that it wouldn’t save the United States any money. An economic problem would actually arise (7 Penny Facts). What happens if you go to the store and spend 5.01? You would end up getting charged 5.05 and the businesses would take the extra 4 cents. This small amount would add up very quickly and everything would cost consumers more money each time you go to get gas, groceries, clothes, etc. More money would also be put towards producing more nickels, dimes, quarters, or other paper bills because they would get used more often. Also, all of the cash registers around the entire country would need to be re-programmed, due to not having the penny values. This would cost billions of dollars. So, abolishing the penny would not save money but actually lead to a lot of other costs all related to abolishing
In America, there is still a debate if the penny should be eliminated. If it was to be eliminated it would still be used, but in a minimal way. In Canada, the Canadian penny was eliminated due to cost, time, and the country believed it was a waste of money, “inflation reduced its purchasing power by 95% since it was first minted domestically in 1908: back then the cent could buy goods of the cost of $0.20, today in other words.”(The Economist). Once a small coin can no longer be used to buy individual items at that price, but it is only used to make change, it becomes more trouble than it is worth. Canadian pennies cost “1.6 Canadian cents to manufacture, and the government expected to save $11 million a year by eliminating them”(The Economist). But that sum equivalent to 0.0006% of GDP is small change. Canadians feel that eliminating pennies is that their feeble purchasing power means dealing with coins,
“Oh my god! Pennies should be rid of!” This is around the same quote you will come to realize is stuck in your head. The must get rid of the penny because it is expensive and has almost no value. In addition, it costs more than one penny to create one penny. The penny is also nearly unusable. Besides, all people do with them are keeping them in jars or carrying them around, not being able to use them because they get declined by several types of machines. For these reasons, pennies are worthless pieces of copper we can’t invest on.
At this point in the American economic system, there is no good use for the penny. As U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe’s press secretary, Neena Moorjani, said, “‘It’s practically useless in everyday life’” (Lewis). People can’t purchase anything with it, it creates unnecessary loose change, and it has a time consuming effect. The penny is not regarded by charge cards, it is trashed by those who find it meaningless, and is even “Hijacked by cashiers who assume you’re among the 27 percent of Americans who don’t even keep track of their loose change” (Kahn). The New York Times’s John Tierney recognized that “Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers…” (Safire). Pennies vanish because no one cares about their worth. People do not have a high regard for them or their value, so they are always misplaced. Every time a penny is lost, which happens quite frequently as Tierney points out, governmental manufacturers’ time and money is being wasted. The penny is a time-consuming coin, and without it, people involved in its use would have better places to put their time. Those government manufacturers could be tracking counterfeiters if they did not have to worry about creating the penny. Pennies cost more employee hours than the cost would be to totally eliminate them (Safire). By using pennies in stores, there is a huge amount of time wasted in both the cashier’s and the buyer’s lives. There was an estimation done by the National Association of Convenience Stores and Walgreens drug store chains that the use of pennies takes about 2 to 2.5 seconds. After multiple calculations and equations, they arrived at the conclusion “that each person is losing $60 per year, at a cost to the nation of over $15 billion per year” (Kahn). Time is a valuable thing in America, and losing $60 per year due to a loss of time is not