Have pennies become useless in modern times? In the articles “Penny Anti” by John fund, a magazine article, “The Many Faces of the Penny” by J. Wendell Shelton, from a coin collectors’ website,”The Cost of a Penny’ by David R Carroll, which is a letter to an editor, and “Save the Penny-Save the Day!” which is an article from Washington Middle School Chronicle, a student newspaper, the authors try to substantiate whether or not the penny needs to be preserved. Whether or not the penny should be preserved has been a big controversy. The penny, all in all,should not be preserved because it costs more than it’s worth to produce, it could lead to lower prices, and people just don’t use them as often.
First of all, producing a penny costs more than it’s actually worth. In the letter, “The Cost of a Penny,” it states, “ A penny currently costs the United States government 2.4 cents to mint.” One penny almost costs 3 cents to make! “The Treasury loses more than $100 million per year on the coin’s production ,”according to the article “Penny Anti.” A penny isn’t worth the time and effort spent producing it.
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In addition, getting rid of pennies could actually save the consumer money.
“For example, something currently worth 99 cents may well drop to 95 cents instead of a dollar to avoid the higher price threshold and attract more customers, “as stated in the letter, “The Cost of a Penny.” The consumer would be saving 4 cents in this transaction, and overtime the savings could add up to be thousands. These savings can happen if the U.S. stops producing
pennies. Furthermore, people in today's world don’t use pennies as often as someone in 1900 would. The article “Penny Anti” says, “more and more people are throwing them in jars or drawers and never taking them out again.” This shows production is useless because people aren’t utilizing the pennies. If the population of the United States doesn’t use pennies, then the U.S. mint shouldn’t have to manufacture them. Many people, especially coin collectors, will say the penny “is a piece of American culture,” which is used as a point in the article “ The Many Faces of the Penny.” The penny is part of American culture and history , and no one can deny that. The fact of the matter is that the people of the United States just don’t need pennies. The government has to change with the times, and in this point of history people don’t need pennies. So even though the penny is part of American culture, the U.S. doesn’t need to use it any longer. The U.S. penny should not be preserved. One reason is that penny production costs more than the penny is worth. Another reason is that it could lead to lower prices and savings. The final reason the penny shouldn’t be preserved is that people don’t use them which makes the effort not worth it. If the penny isn’t preserved, maybe in the future other coins will start to become useless as well.
An item costing $9.99 sounds a lot better than $10.00. Putting the price into double digits may influence the customer to decline the item that he/she wants. With the rising costs of the nickel, this could lead to rounding up prices to the nearest dime. There's so many things that could happen in our country's future. This change could lead to disastrous outcomes, but satisfying ones as well.
In 2001 United States Representative Jim Kolbe introduced legislation to Congress to eliminate the penny coin in most transactions. Although this legislation failed, there are still consistent calls to eliminate the penny as the smallest-denomination United States coin. Our nation is founded on passed traditions. Any American can look basically in any place to understand why America has thrived for centuries. Every tradition, sculpture, monument, or artifact gives Americans history about what has occured. The country struggles to destroy any of these long kept traditions. Although some traditions are completely relevant, the use of the penny is of little worth today. Whether the penny is rolling around in your pocket or resting at the
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.
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.
The Penny is a wonderful coin. It might only be worth one cent but that one cent can help people in all sought's of situations. The penny should kept in circulation. There are many people that use the penny still in today’s society.
Even though members of Congress are trying to ban to penny, Americans can spare the time to use them. In Ric Kahn’s
"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.
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
The penny has been in America for centuries, it's a sentimental object for Americans everywhere. However many have debated on whether or not it should be eliminated or continue being made. The penny should be preserved because it is apart of American culture, given to charity, and keeps items cheap.
To begin, more than half the amount of pennies made are lost and dropped out of circulation almost immediately. “ Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or—as The Times’s John Tierney noted five years ago—behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball,” as stated from “Abolish the Penny” by William Safire. To explain, while most pennies are disappearing, never to be seen again, the U.S.
A buyer brings along with him snacks that he would like to purchase in a dollar store: chocolate chip cookies, a Pepsi, gummy bears, and a bag of chips. He waits in line, eager to consume this huge delight. It is his turn, and he hurriedly placed his treats on the counter, waiting anxiously to pay immediately. The cashier replies to him, “The price will be $5.99, sir.” The buyer takes out five one-dollar bills and four quarters. Not an instance did he ever use a penny in this case, which he thought was useless and meaningless. As you can see, the penny has become quite worthless and diminished in purpose. Many citizens would prefer to round up and pay rather than spend time and look in their
Robert Whalpes has done a study on the effects of getting rid of the penny. According to Dr. Robert Whalpes, “His study says that the time wasted counting pennies could add up to over $700 million per year nationwide. To a retail business, time is money because many retail businesses pay their employees by the hour, if the retail clerk and customer spend just a 2.5 second per transaction counting pennies; those seconds could start to add up. Those seconds add up to an estimated $700 million in wages that businesses pay retail clerks to count pennies” (source two). In addition to retailers paying clerks to count pennies, the penny has not been used on foreign military bases for over 30 years. According to Chris Ward, a spokesman for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, “Pennies are too heavy and are not cost-effective to ship”. This evidence supports the claim that the United States should get rid of the penny because it is costing retailer money and the army has stopped using the penny with little to no financial problems on their
However, business owners should be thinking about their consumers. If a business owner wanted more customers, they would round the prices down to the nearest nickel, not up. Money would be saved for consumers from the rounded prices, not lost. Say the prices were rounded against consumers, so that $29.96 would be rounded up to $30.00 after eliminating the penny. The customer would generally lose 2.5 cents with each newly bought item. The article from the National Review did the math, and found that “If someone engages in two such transactions per day, over a year they would lose $18.25 compared with the person given their pennies.” This amount is much less than the average amount lost from time counting pennies, which is $50. In any way, eliminating the penny would result in saving money, not losing it from rounded