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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

cnn.com

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Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#141

Post by Night_Thastus »

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now.

It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything.

Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a choke-hold on retailers, and the whole thing is basically a scheme that funnels money from the poor to the wealthy via interest and fees on the consumer, interchange fees, and rewards programs.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#142

Post by dghlsakjg »

simonw wrote: post #64
ianferrel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)"

> In addition, the law covering the federal food assistance program known as SNAP requires that recipients not be charged more than other customers. Since SNAP recipients use a debit card that’s charged the precise amount, if merchants round down prices for cash purchases, they could be opening themselves to legal problems and fines, said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for NACS.

So just round snap transactions too, not just cash ones. Now SNAP recipients are never paying more than any other customer for the same basket of goods.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#144

Post by ryandrake »

rayiner wrote: post #95
ceejayoz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone can see. Australian notes vary in size for this reason.

[flagged]

Or put another way: "Deliberately griefing the experience of a small number of people just to make it marginally more convenient for everyone else."

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#145

Post by Maxion »

SoftTalker wrote: post #117
afavour wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States is the only country that prints all denominations of currency in the same size. The US and Switzerland are the only two countries that use the same colors for all of their various bills. Needless to say, this sameness of size and color make it impossible for a blind person to locate the correct bills to make a purchase without some sort of assistance, or confirm that he or she has been given the c…

It's a bit odd that the mint doesn't emboss the denomination in braille on each note. I'd think that there would be a way to do that and have it hold up pretty well in circulation?

Braille does not help everyone. Most people with vision issues are not legally lind and do not know braille.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#146

Post by rando001111 »

throw0101d wrote: post #107

So Obama wanted to wanted to ban the penny, but it was deemed illegal to do so and efforts to get rid of the law requiring it did not pass: * https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/02/10/trump-us-mi... * https://www.local3news.com/obama-wants-to-retire-the-penny-b... It's not that keeping the penny around is (necessarily) a good idea, but that there are, you know, laws, and people (including the President and cab…

to my knowledge the legislation only says that the executive branch needs to make the "necessary" amount of pennies. the argument is that because they're losing money literally printing money that the "necessary" amount is zero and that therefore doing this follows the law because zero is an amount.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#147

Post by phantom784 »

Amorymeltzer wrote: post #113

Some interesting complications with rounding I had not heard about before were mentioned here, worth noting I think, especially given the prominence of SNAP in the news lately: >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, according to the National Association of Convenience…

For the SNAP law, could they just round down SNAP purchases in the same way to be compliant?

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#148

Post by delecti »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #83
delecti wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US properly got rid of pennies (instead of Trump just doing another end-run around congress, by ordering the Mint to stop making them, on shaky legal ground), the legislation could easily supersede those state laws.

What exactly is the law? Can you show me the statute requiring the treasury department to coin pennies?

Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution gives Congress the authority responsibility to coin money. And in the coinage act of 1792, 31 USC 5111(a)(1), congress directs that the treasury "shall mint and issue coins described in section 5112 of this title in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States", with the list in section 5112 explicitly listing the penny (31 USC 5112(a)(6)). It's clearly intended to instruct the treasury to mint pennies without congress needing to proscribe the varying amount every year. It also clearly demonstrates the intent that pennies "shall" be produced.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mo/st-louis/politics/2025/04/3... https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5111 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5112

The fact that all of that gives leeway for "'none' is all that's necessary" is why I said the legal basis was "shaky" and not "baseless". I think getting rid of pennies is good, but this is something that Congress needs to do, rather than continually abdicating its responsibilities.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#149

Post by noir_lord »

nayuki wrote: post #20

We eliminated pennies in Canada in 2012 and the transition was a non-issue. The vast majority of retailers would round cash transactions to the nearest $0.05, but a few would round down to the nearest $0.05 in favor of the customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_low-denomination... Canadian cash is better than American cash in several ways: No penny, durable polymer banknotes (instead of dirty wrinkly c…

Same in UK but we also size each face value differently.

Which helps partially sighted people and is a good visual check.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#150

Post by wasabi991011 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #117
afavour wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States is the only country that prints all denominations of currency in the same size. The US and Switzerland are the only two countries that use the same colors for all of their various bills. Needless to say, this sameness of size and color make it impossible for a blind person to locate the correct bills to make a purchase without some sort of assistance, or confirm that he or she has been given the c…

It's a bit odd that the mint doesn't emboss the denomination in braille on each note. I'd think that there would be a way to do that and have it hold up pretty well in circulation?

I think I've seen that blind people in the US have a little machine that they can use to add the braille themselves. Also from a quick google search there's also electronic bill readers that can be provided to blind people for free if they qualify.

In Canada the bills are embossed with braille by the mint. There may be other accommodations too, but I haven't looked it up.

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