Current Events > The Penny is No More

(+) Yeah! (+)

• The move will save the government $56 million a year in reduced material costs, according to the government.
• "Given the cost savings to the taxpayer, this is just another example of our administration cutting waste for the American taxpayer and making the government more efficient for the American people," a Treasury spokesperson told Axios in a statement.

• "For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "This is so wasteful!"
• "Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time," Trump said.

• The cost of the coin has "remained above face value for the 19th consecutive fiscal year."
• The unit cost for nickels was 13.78 cents, the report said.

• But Treasury told WSJ that when there's not enough pennies to use in everyday cash transactions, businesses will need to start rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cents.

businesses will need to start rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cents.

If they handle the rounding like other countries that have done this? It all evens out in the end. If they only ever round up? Then that's 'Merica for you.

oh great, he's gonna save us taxpayers $56 million? wonderful! great job Trump! but what the fuck about the BILLIONS of dollars of our tax money that is going to all of the services and programs that you are cutting and absconding with the funding? $56 million up against several BILLION? fuck you.

I think you know how they are going to round. And clearly they will need to do it for all transactions, not just cash transactions.

In Canada if you pay by card, the price is as advertised. So if an item comes out to 11.31 with tax, cards pay 11.31, cash rounds down if the change ends lower than 5, so cash would be 11.30. Throughout a lifetime this probably evens out enough to not be bothered by it.

we should keep the penny, it's fucking dumb to cancel a 60 million dollar program when that's not that much.

so what if it costs 2 cents, it'll be used several times.

so stupid how everyone is on board with this. you're kidding yourself if you think this is not YET ANOTHER way for them to fuck the regular person. it's going to cost the average lower-middle class person about 200 bucks a year in ROUNDED UP costs.

EVEN IF we are wasting money on pennies, it's something that is wasted on REGULAR people. Billionaires don't know what a penny looks like of course they wouldn't give a shit.

idk why everyone hates the fucking penny so much. that's the fucking problem, a goddamn coin. we fucking did it, problem solved.

Canada already got rid of their penny?

Why does everything have to be rounded up?

Things are rounded down when they should be here. Why would it be any different there?

Lemme break it down like this:

The effect on the average individual will be much more than the savings will effect the government. How much more? It's fucking terrible. This will funnel literally billions into corporate pockets every year and I will show you why, it's not complicated.

First, all prices will be rounded up, obviously, that's the entire point.

Let's use conservative numbers and say that this results in only costing you $100 bucks a year. I think it will be more like $200 for most of us, but whatever let's do 100.

That's 330,000,000,000 billion shuffled into corporate pockets every year.

So whereas before you, personally, YOU paid 5.5 cents last year to keep the penny program running, next year you will be out AT LEAST some amounts of money.

Like, do you guys fucking get it? It's not good AT FUCKING ALL.

It's cheaper to keep the penny program. It's intuitive but it's obvious when you think about it.

Even if you think I am wrong by a POWER OF 1000 and it will only cost you maybe 10 cents over the course of the year, right now you are only paying 5.5 cents a year to run the program.

What in the fuck is wrong with everybody.

Even if you think I am wrong by a POWER OF 1000 and it will only cost you maybe 10 cents over the course of the year, right now you are only paying 5.5 cents a year to run the program.

What in the fuck is wrong with everybody.

Fun fact: you don't have to "round" at all when you get rid of the penny. Here in Canada, we ditched the penny years ago and if you're paying cashless (i.e. 99% of all transactions these days), prices are unchanged. It's only if you're paying cash that rounding happens.

Also, this topic is nostalgic for me, because when the Canadian government decided to get rid of the penny there was the exact same angst about how awful it was going to be for consumers and... yeah, it turned out to be absolutely fine. Nobody here misses them.

Fun fact: you don't have to "round" at all when you get rid of the penny. Here in Canada, we ditched the penny years ago and if you're paying cashless (i.e. 99% of all transactions these days), prices are unchanged. It's only if you're paying cash that rounding happens.

Also, this topic is nostalgic for me, because when the Canadian government decided to get rid of the penny there was the exact same angst about how awful it was going to be for consumers and... yeah, it turned out to be absolutely fine. Nobody here misses them.

The U.S. Mint reported losing $85.3 million on the nearly 3.2 billion pennies it produced in the 2024 fiscal year that ended in September.

Good.

This will be the one good thing he does out of the many horrible things. But it's still a good thing.

Of course everyone will round up. Something that is $1.01 will now be $2.00. There's profit to be had.

Of course everyone will round up. Something that is $1.01 will now be $2.00. There's profit to be had.

As a coin collector this sucks. But I can't say we should keep the penny around just for us numismatists. I'll be curious to see what happens to the collectors market and if there are things to look for as a result of this. This is going to be a massive blow to coin collectors because pennies are the prime coin for finding rare shit.

Again I can't argue we need to keep it around but I will be sad one of my hobbies got diminished.

They should get rid of the nickel too

They are just getting rid of the penny, not other coins. Even if they are only rounding up, that would be $1.05, not $2.00.

First, all prices will be rounded up, obviously, that's the entire point.