Being the first currency in the United States, dating back to 1787, the penny has been the longest serving currency - thanks to Abe Lincoln. In recent times, the penny has become a useless piece of material due to how costly everything is, the time consumed in making change, and the true objective to facilitate transactions. This is why the penny should be abolished from our society.
Cost. It is what drives the economic market of the world today. Back in the 1950’s, the penny was used for buying an array of smaller items. Stated in Source 3, “...it takes nearly a dime today to buy what a penny bought back in 1950.” Furthermore, the world is driven by cost. As known, prices increase everywhere - making it impossible to buy anything with just a penny. Moreover, where do all of the pennies disappear to? Penny heaven? “Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks… behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball.” additionally stated in Source 3. Since most of the pennies in circulation cannot be found, what is the point in having them? Exactly, there not a valid reason. As stated earlier, it takes about a dime to buy
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anything the penny bought in the 50’s. In conclusion, the cost of everything drives upward, and there is simply no point in having a currency that is unusable to use alone. The time consumed in making exact change is unacceptable.
According to Source 2, it is estimated that an additional 2 to 2.5 seconds is added to each cash transaction, not including the extra 30 to 35 seconds that someone looks for a penny in their pocket. As calculated, 40 seconds in the entire cash transaction is wasted per person. In that 40 seconds, you could have already been in the car, on your way home, instead of making exact change. Furthermore, it is such an agitation to have to go through the realms of your pockets just to find the small coin that is a possible counterfeit. Moreover, it is just amazing that only 23% of the income making households want to abolish the penny, according to Source 4. Could it be because we are in a more technical state where debit and credit
exist? Above all, the penny had a purpose. Stated in Source 2, it was used to facilitate transactions. People went through their pockets, and cashiers had a vast bag of pennies to give change, but that was in the 1700’s. However, the world is in a more technical state - asked in Paragraph 2. Since the introduction of the debit and credit card system, the use of cash has plummeted. There is no point in using cash, especially pennies, when someone can pull out of their wallet a small, lightweight piece of plastic that can be used in a variety of different transactions. To conclude, the world is becoming a more technical place, and the use of cash will eventually be wiped out by its competitor: the credit and debit card system.
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 2001, United Sates Representative Jim Kolbe proposed a legislation to Congress to dispose the penny coin from the currency of America because of its small impact. Although his legislation failed, most people currently argue about the penny’s existence today. Even though the penny stood as a mark of history, it is useless and should be eliminated from America’s currency.
They must be eliminated, but you might think. Wont prices go up and charities lose money? No. new zealand , finland, and the netherlands stopped using the one cent or the one cent euro and noticed no change in cost instead they round to the nearest five cent. Anyways the US has already gone through this process without trouble like the half cent it was eliminated in 1857 because it was too little worth. Another thing is that everyone loves lincoln so they might think that his monument might be taken away but taking away the penny won't take away his memory we will still have him on our five dollar bill which won't go away. Yes you might think it is unpatriotic or disrespectful to take away lincoln but the us military is not using pennies because they have already realized that pennies are useless and not needed so they round to the nearest five cent. So basically pennies just aren't worth making, they waste people's time and they don't even work as money like they are supposed to, and because of inflammation lose more value every year making them making everything
To begin, United States should not eliminate the penny because the coin has impacted our language by giving us more phrases and words. 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
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.
“How does anyone live on the wage available to the unskilled?” This is the question Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By In America, asked herself while discussing the topic of poverty with a friend of hers’. She believed someone needed to figure this question out on their own, but she also believed that she was not fit on taking on this experiment.
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.
Poverty and low wages have been a problem ever since money became the only thing that people began to care about. In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, she presents the question, “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” This question is what started her experiment of living like a low wage worker in America. Ehrenreich ends up going to Key West, Portland, and Minneapolis to see how low wage work was dealt with in different states. With this experiment she developed her main argument which was that people working at low wages can’t live life in comfort because of how little they make monthly and that the economic system is to blame.
We should keep the penny because it has history, in fact it was “the first currency authorized by the United States” (Lewis). The penny no longer has the value that it used to have, but it is still necessary to make purchases as accurate as possible. The penny may seem like a waste of time to many Americans because it takes so long for cashiers to make change, forcing people to wait in line, but it is actually worth the time spent. The penny helps with keeping prices a cent lower, and therefore stimulating the economy. The penny is important to many people who need the money and for whom pennies still have value.
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.
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
By many aspects the one dollar note will just be a symbol of America and the American wealth, however we will see that it can convey way more than that. First and foremost, the one dollar note, is something judged to be common knowledge, everybody can approximately see what it looks like and they will not look in depth of what can be one of the most symbolic items of the United States of America. First printed in 1863, the dollar note was here to represent an abstract, yet know by everyone, money. Before then, coins were just the symbolic way of representing money.
Some might say that pennies are useful when it comes to dealing with small amounts of change. However, with the new technologies of credit cards, we can use that for dealing with small amounts of change instead of paying more than what is needed and carrying a bunch of useless change that you may never need. Also, if it’s costing a lot more than what it is and if people have stopped using it and stuff it in jars, then we should stop wasting money just to produce pennies. Other people also still want pennies because of traditional reasons and symbolism. The U.S. citizens have an unnecessary need to connect to president Abraham Lincoln through pennies.
First, in order to function properly, countries have to follow rules to avoid deflation or inflation. However, if a country wanted to, they could easily deflate or inflate their economy by breaking said rules. The second major flaw of the gold standard is that there is not enough gold in the world to serve as money anymore because there is too much money in circulation. The process of mining gold is dangerous, expensive and difficult as it is hard to find. The process of printing dollar bills is quick, easy and cheap. Why go through the effort to mine more gold when the fiat system has arguably done just as well? The choice is clear, the gold standard has been replaced by a new, better standard – the fiat