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Honestly nickels and dimes, and maybe even quarters, should go too. It's ridiculous that we don't have $1 and $2 coins in widespread circulation in the US (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it).
Finally! Here is a delightful article from NYT from last year on this topic. Truly fascinating and bewildering. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/magazine/worthless-pennie...
Yeah, really bewildering, happiness inflated by inflation.
Honestly nickels and dimes, and maybe even quarters, should go too. It's ridiculous that we don't have $1 and $2 coins in widespread circulation in the US (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it).
I'd mourn the loss of the quarter. I use those quite often. > (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it) Because they keep designing it in the stupidest way, making it easy to confuse with a quarter. I don't know why they do that. That said, I do prefer paper $1 bills over coins. Paper is lighter and easier to carry. But I'd only slightly grumble if we replaced it with a reasonable coin.
Sure, but how many $1 bills do you typically carry around? If it's more than four, then you can trade them in for a $5 bill just about anywhere.
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The linked article raises a few problems that the US could have with that solution: > Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change.
This seems like a non-issue as long as they round the price down. Because there's no law that the store can't discount their total by a small amount and then provide exact change. "Congratulations customer, we have a special coupon today for $0.03 off your purchase. Here's your change :)"
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It's a completely different color than a quarter.
That doesn't help if you're in dim lighting or have vision problems.
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Most of the stores in my area have started requiring people to pay with exact change or by card because they can't get pennies to make change. Personally, I think stores should just start setting prices to avoid the need for pennies, but that would be too easy, I guess.
If your sales tax rate is 8.875%, what do you price a banana at to avoid change?
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There's a cash-heavy business I work with that's already having a hard time sourcing the pennies they need. I guess they're all in a jar under your desk.
I have a hard time believing any business relies on access to Pennies when all cash transactions can be rounded to a nickel in some way amenable to both parties. I imagine most customers just don’t give a damn.
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This seems like a non-issue as long as they round the price down. Because there's no law that the store can't discount their total by a small amount and then provide exact change. "Congratulations customer, we have a special coupon today for $0.03 off your purchase. Here's your change :)"
I don't see why you couldn't do it in either case. If you modify the actual price, then you are giving exact change. Why wouldn't round() be as valid a price modification as floor()?
I guess you could calculate all of your prices such that, once sales tax is added, they round to a 5 cent value.
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The linked article raises a few problems that the US could have with that solution: > Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change.
> require merchants to provide exact change All the items in my dad's farm shop were priced so they came out to a round dollar amount after tax, and that was 40 years ago.
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Yeah. My proposal would be to have 10 cent, 50 cent, and $1 coins (rounding everything to the nearest 10 cents), with $2 the smallest bill. And probably you could drop the $5 bill at that point.
There's a lot of physical infrastructure that works with quarters, and it's probably not worth giving that up for slightly improved coinage. Just drop all the coins smaller than a quarter.