GET RID OF THE PENNY

So now that I've made my thesis statement, here's the gist. I hate pennies. I completely see the merits of a larger percentage of change in our currency a la UK and Eurozone, but pennies are stupid.

From the about.com article:
The U.S. Cent, or penny coin, has almost no purchasing power today. The cost of making the pennies (1.26 cents each) is higher than face value, and the melt value of pennies ranges from more than 2.4 cents for the pre-1982 copper pennies, to nearly a full cent for the zinc pennies. However, the penny is a very sentimental coin to most Americans, and many people fear that eliminating the penny would raise prices because things would need to be rounded to the nickel.


Rounding-up prices wouldn't matter - The anti-penny folks rebut the rounding-up argument by pointing out that we wouldn't pay more for each item we buy, only for the total price of what we buy. Even if you shop 2 or 3 times a day, (which most people don't,) and even if the rounding goes against you 2 times out of 3, (which it shouldn't,) we're still only talking about a 3 or 4 cents per day at the most! Most people throw more than 4 cents' worth of pennies into the jar (or trash) each day anyway!


Pennies < minimum wage - A recent New Yorker article pointed out that pennies are so worthless now that it doesn't even pay the federal minimum wage to stoop to pick one up off the street unless you can do it in 6.15 seconds or less.

Years ago Australia got rid of their penny, rounding software on every cash transaction at the POS. Turns out that it ends up evening out, and they don't have to carry around stupid, nearly worthless change.

GO FOR IT U.S. MINT.

Sources -> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Penny_debate_in_the_United_States
http://www.retirethepenny.org/
http://coins.about.com/od/uscoins/i/penny_debate_2.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2010/05/04/f-penny-one-cent-coin.html