Speech On Pennies

“Penny’s take up too much space on our dresser!” Said Jim Flaherty, the Canadian finance minister, in a speech.(Sommer) Do we really need penny’s? I believe the U.S should stop making pennies. Pennies just cost to much to make, and they waste our time counting them over counters and at food service windows. Also, other countries have banned the penny and so should we.
The penny costs more than its worth. Even though, pennies aren't worth that much, the money wasted to produce them can add up to millions of dollars over time. It costs 2.4 cents to produce a single one cent coin.(Story) Taxpayers lose money every time a penny is made. It may not seem like much now but it can add up to $60.2 million a year.(Sommer) People think that pennies are not worth much and they aren’t, but they cost more to produce than they make.
Another argument to get rid of the penny is that it wastes time. It
takes time to count every single penny that comes into banks, shops and restaurants. It takes time to produce and distribute each and every penny. Employees are paid by the hour. On average it takes 2.5 seconds per transaction to count pennies and time is money. Business owners lose about $700 million in wages do to time taken to count pennies. It sure would save a lot of time and money to get rid of the penny.
Along with costing to much to produce, and wasting time to be counted, other countries have stopped using the penny without major disasters. Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Britain have already banned the penny.( Sommer) Along with most foreign military bases. One foreign Military base has not used the penny for 30 years. They say it is too heavy and not cost effective to ship.(Mancuso) Canada has also stopped using the penny. The U.S has similar coins to us so we should have similar results. Canada has plans to stop minting the penny and stop distributing it in banks. Other countries have banned the penny and so should we.
Believe It or not their are some people who think we should not ban the penny.
Some might say that if we ban the penny and go to the rounding system it will be done unfairly. Inflation is always a threat when small coins are removed from our currency. For example, a $2.03 cup of coffee may be rounded up to $2.05 but a $2.01 cup of coffee may be rounded down to $2.00. With the rounding up a few cents and rounding down a few cents it will even out to making the same and losing the same amount every year.(Sommer) A reason to keep the penny is that people are attached to the penny. The penny has been around since the 1700’s. Like all good things when they need to go you let them go. Some one might say that since the penny isn’t worth much you can donate them to charity and things. A school raised over $3,000 in a week because of penny’s.(Waterhouse) The only reason this happened is because the penny isn’t worth much it is easier to give away. When we give them to banks and charities, they can melt them down to make bigger and better things that don’t cost more than they are worth to
make.
As you can see by my points made above, the penny takes up too much space, it costs to much to make and wastes time being counted over the counter. I strongly believe that the penny should be removed from our currency and melted down to make copper wire or other things. So, do we really need the penny? I don’t think so. The penny is a total wastes of resources , time and space. Write your congressmen to get this fixed. You are wasting your tax dollars reading this right now. Go do it now.