It's Time To Abolish The Penny

Feted as the first currency authorized by the United States dating back to 1787, the penny. The penny seems to cause more of a hassle than anything else. ⅓ pennies drop out of circulation everyday, a lot of time is lost during one transaction. However, pennies have a lot of history behind them. Pennies with everything they have been through, should not be abolished.

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.

Mint is punching out 10 million more pennies a day. Edmond Knowles, from “Penny Pinchers” by Ric Kahn, has been saving pennies for 38 years filling jugs with the useless piece of copper and zinc. When all of the coins were recycled he had collect 1,308,459 pennies all together, therefore ended up with $13,084.59. Pennies are disappearing everyday never turning up or maybe 38 years later, and for this reason pennies should be eliminated.

To continue, exact change while checking out takes more time than needed.

“...estimated that handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds to each cash transaction (remember that we are including the occasional customer who spends 30 seconds looking for the penny in his pocket). Let us estimate that each person goes through three of these transactions per day and that on average there is one person waiting in line (making for a total of three people’s time wasted in each transaction),” states “Penny Pinchers” by Ric Kahn. While looking for exact change instead of just receiving more change, more time is taken than needed. “Probably only about half of the wasted time is directly connected with a cash transaction, giving a total of 40 wasted seconds per day per person. This may not seem like a lot, but it translates to 40 × 365 / 3600 = 4 hours per person per year. If each person’s time is worth $15/hour then we arrive at the conclusion that each person is losing $60 per year, at a cost to the nation of over $15 billion per year. . . ,” as stated by Ric Kahn from “Penny Pinchers.” Because people want to give exact change the both people are losing

money.

Critics argue, that charities rely on the loose change. “Many charity organizations also rely on pennies for money. Organizations like the Salvation Army and UNICEF depend on people giving extra coins here and there,” states Grace Harter from “The Penny Should Stay.” With charities asking for people’s loose changes, why are there so many coins dropping out of circulation? Charities ask for the change and with confidence people hand over change knowing it’s going to a good cause. “..an armored car picked up his 4.5 tons of spare change, and had it recycled through Coinstar. That would be 1,308,459 pennies, or $13,084.59…,” states “Penny Pinchers” by Ric Kahn. All of the coins were not put to a good cause, like a charity. If the only good thing pennies are used for are charities, people should be giving their coins to them. Therefore pennies should be abolished because they’re not being use for the only thing they are good for.

To conclude, pennies should be abolished, even though they are so old. ⅓ pennies drop out of circulation everyday, a lot of time is lost during one transaction, however pennies have a lot of history behind them. Therefore the penny should no be abolished.