Technically, they could probably eliminate the nickel too. A Dime, today, buys about as much as a penny did, 60 years ago.
Steve
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Credit where credit is due: this is likely one of TI’s better initiatives. A lot of gas station signage will have to change, though, as a consequence.
Pete
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Gas station signage has been showing tenths of a cent, as long as I can remember, but we never had a tenth of a cent coin.
Of course, if they eliminate pennies, without mandating prices be rounded to the nearest nickel or dime, that will push people to use credit cards for more transactions, increasing the skim for the CC companies.
Steve
I agree, though it was first proposed by Reps in both the House and Senate and it unfortunately went no where. Last time McCain pushed for it but it died in committee.
A bit of irony is that the nickel cost something like $0.14 to make - so it is as bad or worse than the penny.
Maybe we can get rid of the penny and then in a few years, make the nickel in the size and composition of the penny - thus cheaper.
Would have to reprogram all the coin machines though. Probably a lot of pushback to that.
According to Mr Google, it only costs $0.053 to make a dime. See? Plan Steve is the way to go. Eliminate both penny and nickel. Then no worries about changing vending machines. I remember how the mint had to tinker with that layered dime to make the electrical resistance the same as the silver dime it replaced…but back then, I could buy a Coke, and get change back, from a dime. Can’t buy a Coke for $1 now.
Steve
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Oh, no! I have maybe 40#'s of coins, mostly pennies out in the shop, too lazy to take them to a coin counter, was going to roll 'em myself, but,. So I guess I better find a place to take 'em while they still have value!
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The coin counting machines you see in stores skim off the money you put in them.
When my aunt died, I inherited, literally, buckets of loose change. During one of my every weekend trips to Kazoo, to take stuff out of her apartment, I gathered up all the buckets of change, and spent the next week or two, at home, rolling the coins. Walked into the bank, lugging a bucket, and placed it on the counter. The teller dropped a lollypop in the bucket, as it was a couple days before Halloween, and she thought I was trick or treating. I gave her back the lollypop, and deposited the rolls of change in my aunt’s account.
Plan Steve would also require discontinuation of the quarter, due to the odd denomination, as every coin would need to be divisible by 10. Then take the tooling that had been created for the Susan B and mint new 50 cent coins. Except, to mollify the conspiracy nutters, put Trump’s picture on it. Cash registers already round sales tax to two decimal points, Change registers to round to one decimal point instead.
QED
Steve
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ripped from the headlines
Steve
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Yes, I was shocked that Trump backed this until I realized that the corporations who “skim” our money to make these idiot coins were probably too slow and dim to bribe him correctly?
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Of course, replacing the dollar note with a coin would be a huge saving also.
Coins last indefinitely, 1$ notes not so much.
We have existing 1$ coins but we could change to something more politically correct.
Just stop printing the note. Sounds perfect for an executive order.
Decree the no more will be printed, and existing ones will be honored as legal currency for some period of time (say 1 year or so)
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The beef with the Susan Bs, besides looking like a quarter, was register cash draws did not have any place to put them. Eliminate the penny, and, per Plan Steve, the nickel, solves that problem.
When I worked in the Office Depot warehouse, in the late 90s, the vending machines in the lunch room took Susan Bs. Put a fiver in the bill changing machine in the lunch room, and it spit out Susan Bs. I have not seen a vending machine since then that took Susan Bs.
Last dollar coins I saw were Sacagaweas, gold colored so they would not be so easily confused with quarters, and that was nearly 20 years ago.
Steve
Well, whatever it takes to make them go away… Maybe just take them to a local shelter and donate the lot, let them deal with it… I didn’t miss it at the time, just getting change out of my pockets, rarely use cash anywhere any more, any change goes into their penny pots or tip jars, or just tossed in a handy bus on the way back to the car, some change in the truck for meters, but that’s been unused for years now… What it is, is the old bank money bags, in an old meter Skil Saw case, last I moved it was a couple years ago… So a hand truck to get it to my truck, then once there it’s not coming back… It’s a mix of coins, but mostly pennies… Used to look for more valuable ones, but gave that up… Used to be a coin collector guy in our local bowling alley, if he was around, let him deal with 'em!
Just one more thing to deal with… Aging is not for sissies!!
No, it won’t.
Other countries have eliminated their penny equivalent. Nothing at all changes. Prices don’t have to be rounded to nickels. You will still write checks and make electronic payments to the penny. Credit card charges will still be to the penny. It will only affect actual cash payments. And even then as long as pennies are still around, they will likely be accepted. Just don’t expect stores to have them available to make change. Most will just round to the nearest nickle and there won’t be any massive shift of money to anyone. We all know how to round. (Or at least those with an actual 8th grade education will - I am convinced that a sizable fraction** of the population does not operate at the 8th grade level.)
–Peter
** Fractions - another thing that separates those with 8th grade functions from those without.
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I haven’t seen a mechanical cash register in 30 years, maybe 40. Every store seems to have a computerized POS. Program them to round to one decimal point, instead of two. Get rid of the penny and nickel, and the quarter, because, without pennies or nickels, you can’t make change for a quarter.
People will scream and holler about rounding to one decimal point? Registers rounded to two decimal points 60 years ago, when a penny bought what a dime does now, so there is no effective difference in money lost or gained by rounding, vs 60 years ago.
Here’s something to chew on: on Michigan state income tax returns, you are required to round every entry to whole dollars. Do I see gun carrying mobs storm the capital about it? Nope.
Steve
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You had me - all those years I naively thought you guys held on to your penny because politics didn’t want such an obvious proof of inflation.
Instead, it was about a lobbying ploy with a very satisfying ROI:
Between the line: Americans for Common Cents — which argues the penny’s value and benefits on Capital Hill — is assailing President Trump’s move to suspend production of the 1-cent coin. The group is sponsored by Artazn, which sells zinc coin blanks that the U.S. Mint stamps into pennies.
SB (living in a country that abolished its 1 centime/ Rappen coin 20 years ago)
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Students aren’t recovering from covid. Test scores are getting worse.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/01/29/nations-report-card-naep-test-scores-fall/
The sobering report released Wednesday from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called the Nation’s Report Card, showed that the path to recovery remains far rockier than experts had hoped — especially for students who were already struggling the most.
The data showed that reading scores, which had fallen dramatically from 2019 to 2022, fell again in 2024, with a record portion of eight-graders scoring in the lowest category for proficiency. Math scores rose a bit for fourth-graders — a bright spot — but were flat in eighth grade compared to 2022.
Fourth-grade scores have fallen since 2019, particularly for the lowest achieving students… In eighth grade math, scores were stable, nationally and in 48 states and jurisdictions.
In both grades, the portion of kids whose scores were considered proficient rose. For fourth-graders, it increased from 36% in 2022 to 39% in 2024, and for eighth-graders, from 26% to 28%.
DB2
I remember then the Brits dropped the Farthing. I don’t recall if the half penny survived until the UK switched to a decimal currency system.
Steve…remembers when pennies were copper, rather than copper plated zinc
I hardly ever use cash anymore but do manage to collect enough coins over a couple years to make a trip to the credit union to drop it in their coin counter. It spits out a receipt, take it to the counter, deposit it into my account. No skim.
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I wish our Credit Union had one, but even banks don’t seem to handle 'em… I have a coin sorter, a plastic board that separates each, but … Also have an electric counter, but it only deals with one size, a spinning disk with an adjustable exit gate, flea market find, not as useful as I’d hoped, and then various tubing jobbers, but really… too tedious…
God created six year olds for the job of sorting, counting, stacking, and wrapping coins.
Really.
Most do it for free, but offer them 5% of the take and watch them overturn sofas and roll up rugs looking for change.
I sure did.
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