Penny Synthesis Research Paper

Do people really need that one extra cent? People normally just leave them on the ground or in a fountain. Some people want to stop minting the penny and to never use it again, but others want to keep using the penny and not get rid of it. Some people are fighting to get rid of the penny and these articles may pull people to their side: “Penny Wise, or 2.4 Cents Foolish?”(Source 1), “Is the Penny Worth It?”(Source 2), “Give a Penny-Save the Day!”(Source 3), and “The Ever-Changing Penny”(Source 4). Some think the U.S. penny should be discontinued because it takes more than one penny to make a penny, it’s not worth much, and it’s a pain to count out when you are paying for something. Most people know that making money costs money. To make a penny it costs almost double the amount. “In 2011, the price to make a penny was 2.4 cents.” (Source 4, Paragraph 4) Some people think that spending 2.4 cents to make a penny is a waste of copper. “Now it costs 1.8 cents to make a penny,” (Source 4, Paragraph 4). In a sense, some consider the penny to be too big. Since that thought, there have been
ten different versions of the penny. “Pennies are ‘too heavy and not very cost effective to ship,’ according to Chris Ward…” (Source 2, Paragraph 1). The U.S. penny is not worth enough for people to live off of. The penny can not sustain someone. You can’t give a person a pay-check and expect them to live off of it. If you give someone a penny and tell them to go and buy something with it, and if you can’t buy a little snack then you can’t buy food to live off of. If someone gives you a penny, you probably will just give it back or tell them to keep it or throw it in a well. Now, if we were to round up to the nearest ten-cents, people would want their money back and they wouldn’t throw it in a well. The fear of that is increase. If we decide to start rounding, we may use more money than we did before. “Mark Weller claims that stores will not chose to round their prices down,”(Source 2, paragraph 3). Some people may chose to round down, but if they do, will they make as much money as they used to? The answer to the question is no. People can’t make the same amount of money if they lower their prices. If anything people will round up to either keep their pay the same or increase it.
Lastly, people have an issue with paying with pennies.
If you have a dinner bill of $12.09, would use pennies to pay for it? What some people don’t realize is that it takes time to count pennies. If you are in the store buying food and the line is taking a long time to move, and you start to wonder why, it is probably because some person has a lot of pennies they want to get rid of, and they chose to pay with all of their pennies, therefore holding up the line. Life without pennies would make paying for things so much easier. If we rounded, we would be more time efficient. I think this because people wouldn’t need the penny if we just pay with nickels, quarters and dimes. “Retailers in the real world might raise prices more then lowering them. That could cause a small, one-time inflation burst,” says Francois Velde, an expert on the history of small change. (Source 1, paragraph
7). In conclusion, we should stop minting the U.S. penny and start looking at our other money options. Although people who want to keep the penny can’t bare to part with it because they believe that it is a part of our culture and then if we give it up, we’ll give up a part of our history. My reasons for saying this are that it takes more than one penny to make a penny, it’s not worth much, and it’s a pain to count them out when you are paying for something. There are more reasons to stop minting the pennies than what I have listed. So join us in getting rid of the penny and make your life easier!