The nickel, originally issued in 1866, and the penny, originally issued in 1793, both were made with the intent to be used regularly as a significant value of currency. However with inflation, their utility in the economy is decreasing, and now is no longer practical to use as a denomination of currency. Both the nickel and the penny share much of the same issues. The 2015 cost of minting a penny is approximately 1.7 cents, while the cost of minting a nickel is approximately 9 cents, so the government effectively loses money each time these coins are manufactured. These costs are due to the cost of the raw metals used as well as overhead costs and manufacturing costs. The U.S. Mint loses $55 million dollars annually in printing pennies, and loses an additional $80 million dollars in printing nickels. In addition, these …show more content…
These will be redistributed to be spread among the remaining currencies that are printed. Fixed costs can actually be reduced, since the equipment and materials used to print the penny and nickel can be used for other purposes.
The effect on this coinage change on the economy is that only transactions by cash will be affected. Digital prices and transactions are unaffected. A study by Wake Forest University found that with price rounding to the nearest dime would have a nearly $600 million increase in consumer costs via cash, which tends to disproportionately affect the poor and lower-income socioeconomic bracket. While this may seem like a lot, this works out to only about $2 dollars per person per year increase in spending, which is far lower than inflation. In addition, the savings from this change could be used by the government toward social security, Medicare, and other welfare programs that can offset this change. And the additional spending would be taxed, increasing tax revenue for the
In fact there are many people that oppose abolishing the penny. In source E it states “that 62 percent of people oppose abolishing the penny that has a income less then $25,000 a year.” If the penny was to be abolish then the nickel would be the lowest coin in amount of money. If the nickel was the lowest amount of money there was then that means the purchase prices of items sold would increase. The prices would increase on items sold because the penny would not be in circulation to allow the customer to pay with the correct amount of change. Instead of being able to pay $3.47 for a kids meal at MacDonalds the customer would have to pay $3.50 for the kids meal. With the increasing prices of merchandise sold in stores there could be a budget upset for many families that have to follow a tight budget. Many families have to follow a tight budget to be able to provide for there families. With a tight budget there is no room for the prices of merchandise to increase due to losing the penny. Every penny counts when it comes to having a tight budget and providing for your
Throughout the past decade, costs of everything have skyrocketed. According to Source C, America used to have “five and dime stores;” now its a dollar store. In addition, no one can buy anything with just a penny anymore. The source also made a fair observation that these worthless zinc disks are, “behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball. Quarters and dimes circulated; pennies disappear because they are literally more trouble than they are worth.” According to a New York Times article, “it takes nearly a dime today to buy what a penny bought back in 1950.” The penny is still stuck in the 1950s while America just keeps moving on. As stated by Mark Lewis in his concept of establishing a bill, “the bill would not ban pennies, but merely discourage their use by establishing a system under which cash transactions would be rounded up or down.” (Source A) This motive will help keep the America exceed and
As a sociologist we look at two different perspectives, there is structural functional perspective and the conflict perspective. Out of the two perspectives I agree with the conflict perspective more than I do the structural functional perspective, and I’m going to use this perspective throughout my paper. I choose this perspective because as much as we want society to be “fair” and it work smoothly, it just doesn’t. We have struggle for power and I believe there are the groups that are powerful and wealthy, and there are some groups that are the working class and struggle to make it. I also picked this perspective because in the book Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich gave up the power and wealth to struggle with the working class to show us how truly difficult it sometimes can be.
Do we really need pennies? The story of the penny starts in 1792; it came with several different coins including the dime, nickel, quarter, and half penny. The pennies were first made out of 100% copper, but the price of the copper went up, because of inflation, the power of the penny went down. The cause of the mint is to reduce the amount of copper in pennies first from 100% to 95% but then to 5% copper and 95% zinc. Despite the debate in 2006, the value of metal on older pennies rose over one year.
According to source #4, it states, “The one cent has influenced our language, giving us a number of idioms, such as ‘a penny for your thoughts’ (a way to ask what someone is thinking) and ‘not one red cent’ (meaning no money at all).” This is significant because it shows that the penny has affected the English language, giving the language more idioms to use. It is often said that pennies should not be manufactured anymore due to their excessive cost of manufacturing and distribution. Yes, numerous people do acknowledge that fact, but the government can also propose that pennies are to use inexpensive metal, like steel, which makes the entire coin industry save money and has the cost of coins to be cheaper to make.
Have a good look at the penny, what do you see? You probably see nothing but a copper coated circular poor valued cent. Little does everyone know pennies have been around longer than before their grandparents, even their great-grandparents! Matter of fact, it was around so long ago that Abraham Lincoln’s face was not the first design on the penny. I ask that you take the time to consider the American penny’s worth. Without the people’s belief in its value, the penny will be abolished. I see people every day throwing away a penny rather than to put it in their pocket and save it for future uses. Yes a penny is "outdated, almost worthless, bothersome and wasteful" (Safire) piece of junk, but it's has an economic, cultural, and historical significance to the United States of America. The problem is that nobody pays attention to that, and that gives pennies the image of no value. Three good solutions to show the pennies worth include: tolls and vending machines accepting the coin, more charities to keep their penny drives, and historical evidence of what the penny mean to America so that it can be passed on to the future generations.
There is a side to this debate where the penny could win and stay in circulation. To start, the penny has been around for years and years and it has seemed to work for this whole time. This is true, the penny has been around and can be used still in everyday life. The turn side of this, though valid, is with systems changing is is becoming more and more rare for the penny to have a true dire need. One other strong reason to keep the penny alive would be charity. Charity relies on those people who do not necessarily care enough to keep the pennies t drop them off in the donation box. That though, has a simple solution. If the penny were no longer around nickels and dimes would begin to be the change customers and users are no longer wanting. Charity then in result
"As of 2014, the cost of making a penny was estimated at 1.7¢. So yeah, it almost costs two pennies just to make one penny- which makes no sense (pun intended)". Over time, many people have called for the U.S. to stop making pennies. Three reasons why are, we have a lot of coins and bills, not many people carry around cash, and making pennies can waste time, money, and minerals. That is why I believe the U.S. should stop making the penny.
In America’s modern day economy, the penny is very useless and irrelevant in our society today. As source C states, “The time has come to abolish the outdated, almost worthless, bothersome, and wasteful penny.” There is not one item that can be purchased with a penny anymore (Source C). As source C states, “it takes nearly a dime to buy what a penny bought back in 1950.” Stores such as the Dollar Store prove how the cheapest items you can purchase are with only a dollar, not a cent. Pennies are shoved out of the economic picture by credit cards and because of the modern-day technology, there are even self-service machines that help convert coins into paper money (Source B). Furthermore, pennies are easily tossed into piggy banks or appear behind chair cushions. It is not used the same way as it was before.
“It takes nearly a dime today to buy what a penny bought back in 1950. Despite this, the U.S. Mint keeps churning out a billion pennies a month” (Safire, 2006). The U.S. Mint continues to make a coin that is costing them more to make than it is worth. Although people may be attached to the history of having a penny as part of the monetary system, it is more important to keep up with relevant costs. Even though the penny is a historical representation of our country, it would save time and money if eliminated from the U.S. monetary system.
Now a day, people do not even bother to pick them up when they see them on the street, the unit of a penny is too small to be useful. The one cent coin should be eliminated because they cost more money to produce than what they are worth, “A penny currently costs the United States government 2.4 cents to mint. Yes, that's right—the penny costs more to produce than it's worth! One-cent coins constitute a complete and utter waste of taxpayers' dollars—not to mention a waste of our time and energy,”(Prairie News Register, P.1 ). This shows that if the penny gets eliminated from the United States it will save more time and money. The Penny also means very little to society because when someone sees a penny on the ground they rarely will pick it up. “Production is up in part because of hoarding, and in part because more and more people are throwing them in jars or drawers and never taking them out again. Few people now bother to pick up a penny when they see it on the street. It's simply not worth the effort,” (John Fund, P.2). This evidence shows how picayune the penny is and how people do not really bother for pennies
There is definitely no purpose and meaning in continuing the creation of these worthless objects. All they do to the United States is cause trouble, and they are clearly a bothersome to uphold them in our possession since they barely contain any value. Our economy would be fit with just dimes, quarters, and nickels as our coins. Abraham Lincoln, who was the president represented in this penny, would disapprove having his reputation and honor shown in a futile currency. The government needs to stop producing pennies. They create a loss of money rather than a profit; therefore, these copper cents need to be gone from our economy. What other choice is available? What can these pennies do in order to redeem their glory? It is nearly impossible to convince residents to use pennies once again. The penny has lost its value, and their dignity has become faint to us. It is time to eliminate pennies–for
The penny costs 1.4 cents to manufacture each time at the mint. This is causing the mint to lose money for the treasury. Last year, the mint earned $730 million dollars in profit. Many mint officials claim the estimation will be about $45 million due to the cost of metals made in pennies. Our country is continuing to have a very strong economy with the stock markets going up. The penny might affect these benefits from the rapid production of these coins. Copper and zinc are the main elements that compose the penny. With the rising costs of these elements, the economy may back up a bit. Because of this, the U.S. mint should reduce their penny production.
The U.S penny is no longer worth the money the government spends too make it and should be retired. One reason is that people don't even use the penny anymore so what is the reason too still make it? People would rather throw it away than save it in their purses, pouches, or wallets. Every year pennies are lost in the garbage and left to rot in landfills. They also leave them on the streets too cluster the pathways and decay.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, published in 2001 by Barbara Ehrenreich, is a book about an author who goes undercover and examines lives of the working lower class by living and working in similar conditions. Ehrenreich sets out to learn how people survive off of minimum wage. For her experiment, she applies rules including that she cannot use skills acquired from her education or work during her job search. She also must take the highest-paying job offered to her and try her best to keep it. For her search of a home, she has to take the cheapest she can find. For the experiment, Ehrenreich took on low-wage jobs in three cities: in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota.