Pennies are money, but money never comes out with another price to pay. We tend to think that money is money, however one thing we don’t realize are the negative factors of pennies that also affect today’s economy. Penny production should be stopped because of the economy and the usage of pennies. We see that many may benefit from getting and raising pennies, however, making these pennies are much more than they are worth. We work in a world where nothing is free, the land is not free, food is not free, so why does money itself have a fee? We use products to make these coins which take up much of America’s economy. For example, the text states, “In the United States, the mint says, each zinc and copper coin costs 2.41 cents to produce and distribute,”(Sommer, 3) The United States is suffering from the cost of these small pennies, the cents …show more content…
Not every day you are going to stare at a penny and think that it’s very poor that is cost so much. We refuse to think that pennies are not important, however, we’ve done many things to harm it eventually. For example, “But we are paying a privilege of squirreling them away in drawers and on dressers.”(Sommer, 3) In other words, we pay the price of making these coins so we are able to hide them, keep them, lose them, anything with them, only do really do that much with them? As stated, we tend to lose them and hide them in places we might even not expect where it might be. We also look at the view from people who live in other areas that might have similar perspectives. For instances, “For 30 years, pennies haven’t been used on foreign military bases… ‘too heavy and are not cost-effective to ship,’”(Mancuso, 1) This demonstrates that pennies have been part of our history, only certain factors had been the downfall of the pennies eventually. We can be correct, however, there are some positive factors as
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.
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
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.
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
Due to most people believing the penny is useless, they are more than happy to give them away to charities who actually need money. For example, a middle school raised over $3,000 in a week by creating a fundraiser which asks for student’s pennies. “if the United States eliminates the penny, charities will suffer because people will pay more at the store and feel they have less to give those in need.” (Source 4) People think pennies are worth little so they have no problem giving their pennies away. Also, charities who receive pennies would lose a large amount of money if pennies were no longer
For instance, in the article “Abolish the Penny (Source 3)”, it clearly states, “Where do they go? Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or –as The Time’s John Tierney noted five years ago –behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball.” Adding on, many people view the penny as a useless currency, and they even leave it in hidden places around their own home. The reason why pennies are sometimes located in piggy banks or at the back of sock drawers is that citizens see no purpose in obtaining them. In other words, it seems as if the penny has lost its fame and glory ever since other forms of currency have been established, such as quarters, dimes, and dollar bills. As explained by William Safire, quarters and dimes seem to circulate more often than pennies, and pennies “disappear” due to their worthless value and troubles. Specifically, the reign of quarters and dimes has overtaken the significance of pennies, and as time passes by, the term “penny” might not even be mentioned anywhere around the United States. In addition, more people nowadays tend to use quarters and dimes for due change, leaving the penny to become less essential for our needs. As stated in Source 3, the British and French have already abandoned their low-value coins approximately 30 years ago. This demonstrates the probable
“Pennies are often stored in jars, thrown in water fountains or refused as change”-Penny wise or 2.4 cents foolish by New York's Times Jeff Sommer. The information that will be used in this argumentative essay will be gathered from New York Times Jeff Sommer article called “penny wise or 2.4 cents foolish”, “Give a penny save the day” written by Ted Waterhouse, and last but not least “The Ever-Changing Penny” by Maria Story. All these articles are About why pennies should stay in our life or should be gone for good. Getting rid of pennies is necessary because they are a waste not only because in any corner of your house they can be found as well as on the streets in your neighborhood and they are not used as much that is why getting
Because of the price to make the penny, every year we lose 46 Million dollars(Irina, CBS). If we continue at this pace for many years to come, we will lose hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. With the recent conflicts with foreign countries, this can be a problem, if we get rid of the penny. We can focus the funding of that money onto the war efforts against our enemies. In the government’s eyes 46 Million dollars doesn’t seem like a lot compared to what they earn and what they have; but if we were to compare that to other countries we have a lot more money to do with ourselves, and could have even more if we stop and forget about the penny.
Starting off, pennies are a waste of yours and the governments money. If you ever thought that pennies cost the same as it’s worth, that is completely wrong. Pennies may seem worthless, but it actually cost about 1.6 Canadian cents to make a
This quote demonstrates how pennies have no good use in today’s times. It also shows they
In 2015, 9,365,300,000 pennies were minted; a number that is far greater than the entire population of Earth. For any one item to be produced that much, one would assume that it is an essential element of everyday life, but it is not. In fact, pennies are completely unnecessary and irrelevant nowadays. I believe that the penny should be eliminated from the United States’ economy, because one penny is worth very little, costs more to make than what it is worth, and because pennies waste time for both consumers and business’ during transactions.
Wolman, D. (2010). Want to Help Developing Countries? Sell Them Good Stuff — Cheap. Retrieved from: http://www.wired.com/2010/09/st_essay_pennies/