Pennies are going away in the US

And part of the reason is because they cost twice as much to mint as they are worth?

First, why does that matter? What does any of that matter everything to government does costs money. That’s kind of the whole point. The government isn’t making $100 because it printed one.

And secondly, even if that was true, everything else costs much less to mint than its value, often by orders of magnitude, so the cost of the penny is just tiny fraction of the whole thing. So why does that matter?

So what am I missing here?

Or is it just one of those things that people keep repeating?

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Mellomarsha · 61-69, F

I think it's not so much the cost of minting each penny because they last so long. The amortized cost is very small per penny. If pennies were useful, they'd likely be kept.

It's just that inflation over the past century+ has rendered pennies useless in today's commerce. The nickel is now the most reasonable coin to fill the "smallest dimension" spot. When calculations result in penny-level costs such as sales tax, it's no burden on anyone to have the amount rounded to the nearest nickel. No more pennies? Lighter purses!

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Mellomarsha · 61-69, F

@EBSVC Yes, why? It's beside the point. What matters is, is a nation deriving enough value from having a one-cent piece to justify having it? Value comes not only from recouping manufacturing cost, but also from increased convenience, efficiency, and the immeasurable feeling of well-being among the populace. The penny's demise is mostly a factor of its vanishing usefulness.

EBSVC · 41-45, T

@Mellomarsha This question is fully for my own knowledge

People said a thing about it

The thing they said doesn’t make any sense to me at all

I’m trying to figure out which one of us is wrong

That’s all

Mellomarsha · 61-69, F

@EBSVC Got it. My mistake: I guess I was answering to them, not you.

To you: I think you're right and they're wrong--because they've failed to consider that having the penny has become valueless in this day's exchange of money. No need to discuss cost and effort because they should be zero, having become irrelevant in the decision to discontinue.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

Coins depend heavily on the price of metals.

Here in Canada we got rid of the penny because the price of copper.

The US managed to keep it a little longer using copper plated nickel but the price of both have gone up considerably making it no longer logical combined with inflation.

EBSVC · 41-45, T

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow The point of my question was why does it matter that a penny costs more to produce than its value as currency

Just as a cost in general makes sense, sure. As does the fact that honestly it’s just kind of pointless to have them in today’s economy with how little value one cent actually has

It’s more why do people keep bringing up its cost to value. What does that matter?

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@EBSVC It is being brought up because it is why these coins are going away at this particular time. Pennies in both the US and Canada have been kind of useless for probably 20 years. Nobody is buying anything for under 5 cents anymore. I think the nickel is only still around because the nickel content keeps being replaced with more steel to keep cost down.

But it is the biggest factor in coinage. It is why nobody has all their coins in gold and silver like some fantasy novel.

It just seems weird to some people because we don't think of copper and nickel as "precious metals."

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