Should The US Government Keep The Penny In Circulation?
Should the U.S. Government Keep the Penny in Circulation?
Annoying cashiers was something my siblings and I did quite unintentionally as kids. Down the block from the street we lived on, there was a little convenience store that sold Italian ices, ice cream bars, and a variety of assorted goodies; on hot summer days, we would gather what little change we could find in the couch cushions and pay for our selected treats with pennies, nickels, dimes, and, if the cashier was lucky, quarters. That was when I started thinking about pennies. Are pennies useful? Back in the day, you could buy a stick of gum for a penny! Now, with inflation, pennies do not have the purchasing power they used to. This has led to the question of whether the United …show more content…
I collect them, and the oldest penny that I had was from 1918. I lost that one. Regardless, I think with how things are currently, we are quite dependent on pennies, and eliminating them completely would cause some havoc on prices. On the other hand, I understand that the value of a penny is quite insignificant, and theoretically, it would not be a terrible change to get used to. The possible problem is that if pennies are eliminated, minting of nickels will likely increase, and those are even more costly to make (6.23 cents for each nickel vs 1.66 cents for each penny). But, nickels are in circulation more than pennies; so this may be a non-issue. Through this exploration, I have come to the conclusion that pennies are more expensive to make than they are worth, as are nickels, and although people do not often pay for things with them, banks and businesses use them in high demand. I do wonder what would happen if someone had a small fortune in pennies when the U.S. government stopped minting them, and if people would start trying to spend their pennies as fast as they could. Would stores stop accepting them, knowing soon they would be useless? I mean they would become collectible eventually. I think the most viable option is to make coins that cost less to make than they are worth- and if that means $1 coins then so be
Annoying cashiers was something my siblings and I did quite unintentionally as kids. Down the block from the street we lived on, there was a little convenience store that sold Italian ices, ice cream bars, and a variety of assorted goodies; on hot summer days, we would gather what little change we could find in the couch cushions and pay for our selected treats with pennies, nickels, dimes, and, if the cashier was lucky, quarters. That was when I started thinking about pennies. Are pennies useful? Back in the day, you could buy a stick of gum for a penny! Now, with inflation, pennies do not have the purchasing power they used to. This has led to the question of whether the United …show more content…
I collect them, and the oldest penny that I had was from 1918. I lost that one. Regardless, I think with how things are currently, we are quite dependent on pennies, and eliminating them completely would cause some havoc on prices. On the other hand, I understand that the value of a penny is quite insignificant, and theoretically, it would not be a terrible change to get used to. The possible problem is that if pennies are eliminated, minting of nickels will likely increase, and those are even more costly to make (6.23 cents for each nickel vs 1.66 cents for each penny). But, nickels are in circulation more than pennies; so this may be a non-issue. Through this exploration, I have come to the conclusion that pennies are more expensive to make than they are worth, as are nickels, and although people do not often pay for things with them, banks and businesses use them in high demand. I do wonder what would happen if someone had a small fortune in pennies when the U.S. government stopped minting them, and if people would start trying to spend their pennies as fast as they could. Would stores stop accepting them, knowing soon they would be useless? I mean they would become collectible eventually. I think the most viable option is to make coins that cost less to make than they are worth- and if that means $1 coins then so be