Should the US get rid of the penny?
Should the US get rid of the penny?
Is it about time, or is it still useful? If you think its time has passed, what about the nickel/dime/quarter?
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Sure. Fuck it. I wouldn’t waste any brain power on it when the *gestures wildly at everything* is still happening
I wouldn’t waste any brain power on it
Hold my beer.
We still have pennies because we're still waiting for basically the price of zinc to triple for it to be profitable to not have pennies.
It takes 181.4 modern pennies to make a pound. This penny is 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper.
In 2022 zinc was trading at over $2 per pound. Right now scrap zinc trades at about $1.50 per pound, rising steadily. Copper roughly tracks since while trading at little more than double the price. Accounting for labor and materials it costs more than a penny to mint one.
But, because nothing systemically happens in the US without profit, and after accounting for the labor of reclaiming the metals, the scrap value is a third of the market value of the constituent metals. We still have pennies because it's not yet profitable to recycle them.
That doesn't mean we need to mint more. Especially when it costs more than $0.01 to produce a penny.
You're only pointing to why we don't invalidate the coin.
You're only pointing to why we don't invalidate the coin.
Correct.
That doesn't mean we need to mint more.
The question wasn't if we should mint more. It was if we should do away with what we have.
Sure, but functionally stopping the production is the main benefit of the decision. It means banks can't order more and the usage will naturally wane away.
I guess I'm saying there's a middle ground that doesn't require invalidating the currency