The Penny Debate Continues - Why Keep It?
Is the demise of the Lincoln penny approaching? Public sentiments appears slightly shifted toward its continual survival and the penny is guaranteed to be around for the next several years. The newly designed pennies for 2009 celebrating the bicentennial birth of Lincoln will see to that by itself.
But is sentiment for the penny changing and moving toward its elimination?
While the House is debating changes to the composition of coinage in order to make coins like the penny and nickel once again profitable to mint, more focus is placed on whether the penny should be produced at all. Even the latest House hearing had congressman pondering the pennies’ continuation.
The 60 Minutes segment, Should We Make Cents?, and Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson’s comment in favor of eliminating the penny are further recent examples.
The CoinNews Inflation Calculator shows that it takes 21 pennies today to equal the buying power of the penny back in 1915. In 1960, 31 pennies could buy a gallon of gas. Now it would take several rolls for that one gallon.
Like it or not, given the trend of sentiment and inflation, it would seem the penny could be approaching borrowed time.
Here is an interesting editorial, Dump the penny, from the Chicago Tribune.
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March 19th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Abolish the penny and make nickel out of aluminum! No one use penny to buy things out of vending machine. Make 5 cent nickel out of aluminum that is cheaper than nickel-copper alloy! And make dime, quarter, and half dollar out of nickel-plated steel.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
It seems to me that everyone’s missing a few important details. Pennies are used, every day. If they weren’t, you would never see one, just as I’ve never received a dollar coin from anybody. Interestingly enough, not only do I get pennies every day, I also find that they spend just as well as other coins, and often save time and trouble by allowing me to make exact change for a purchase. Sure, you could eliminate the penny and force everyone to round all prices up (they will of course never be rounded down) but then we as a nation stand for freedom, including the freedom to set your own price, which today can be set at any amount, in a very logical fashion– the standard decimal system, which does not stop at 0.05.
Another thing which is not being considered is the longevity of a penny. Once placed in circulation, a penny will normally be useful for decades. I occasionally receive wheat pennies which were minted in the 40s and 50s and have been circulating all this time. Sure, a penny may cost 1.7 cents today, but after decades of use, we’ve surely gotten our money’s worth out of that coin. Consider the poor lifespan of paper money which must be replaced every 2 years or so on average, and I dare say coins, even the lowly penny, are a good deal for the taxpayers.