Should pennies be removed from the currency system?

[CODE-D]

I dont use pennies unless im desperate.

 

[monkey_man]

there was once a man who had to pay a ticket of 100 pounds
he payed in cents. The woman behind the booth refused to take the 10000 cents, and the man called the police. the man won, and the ticket got payed.

PENNIES AND CENTS ARE MONEY TOO!
stop hating on the little buggers, as they make excellent trolling material

 

[aba1]

I am fairly sure they are being fazed out here in Canada

 

[aba1]

Uhm.. No.

You need the ability to create change for the most nominal denomination of currency possible. Does not matter if "nothing costs 1 cent now" because invariably you need divisiable currency to cover any amount from 1-99.

This is why we have nickles, dimes and quarters. The only difference without penny's we just round up between 1-4 cents.

 

[Rednog]

I say yes just because how annoying pennies are. Vending machines don't take them, and most people will tell you to shove them up your ass if you try to pay more than like 10-20 cents in pennies. Hell I've seen places that have been trolled by people who pay like $10 or more in pennies put up "Use of pennies will result in refusal of service".

 

[neverarine]

their kinda needed... you ever bought something that had tax on it? how often does that come to an even 5? (tax is pretty much 5 cents per dollar on most things here) not as much as it doesn't... so in order to abolish pennies we either would need to make tax always equal a multiple of 5... get rid of taxes on items (wooo, but not gonna happen...) or abolish physical money...

so yeah pennies are needed regardless of the fact that the cost more to make than to use...


the best solution? make cheaper pennies....

 

[NLS]

No. Precisely because regardless of £0.99 or $0.99 or whatever sales, pennies are needed, purely to serve as base units. Without a base unit, mathematically speaking, you're going to be screwed when it comes to adding or subtracting values. There's no feasible way of standardising prices everywhere so that every single transaction will result in more than a single penny difference between other currency values, meaning that when dealing with multiple transactions you are pretty damn likely to need a penny somewhere down the line. This doesn't just apply to single penny difference either. In the UK the next size denomination is 2p, then 5p, then 10p. In the US, isn't it straight up to 5 cents, then 10 cents? You'll thus have the same problem when dealing with 2p, 3p, 4p, etc. differences.

Simply put, base units are essential, and thus getting rid of the penny would cause more problems than it solves.

Here in Norway we recently got rid of the Øre. But only as coin, so prices may still be in Øre, you just have to round up or down. Everyone just pays with debit/credit card anyway. So it continues to serve as a base unit, but not in physical form anymore.

 

[Pharsalus]

start making em of something cheaper. They'd still be useless, but they'd cost less.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[CardinalPiggles]

That would be like the government admitting they have a problem with inflation, which they are trying to cover up.

I'm all for saving money, but it probably won't happen for the next 5 or 10 years at least.

 

[shintakie10]

Uhm.. No.

You need the ability to create change for the most nominal denomination of currency possible. Does not matter if "nothing costs 1 cent now" because invariably you need divisiable currency to cover any amount from 1-99.

While Ill grant you there might be some incentive, Eliminating a vital peice of currency is not a proper alternative. It would make sense to A: Make pennies smaller thus costing less materials. B:
Make pennies out of cheaper more inexpensive materials Or C: eliminate all paper/ coin currency(Including checks) all together and create standard issue "credits" currency that operate in the same manner as every Visa check card without the ability to preclude someone due to bounce checks wrote a decade ago.

That is why we have this thing called roundin up to the nearest 5. Better yet, round to the nearest 10 and eliminate nickles while we're at it. It'd save the US a ton of money and get rid of the incredible annoyance of tryin to figure out what the hell to do with the 2 cents I always get back whenever I buy a soda.

 

[lacktheknack]

Canada just did this, pennies will no longer be accepted as of this September. As a cashier, this fills me with hope.

Also, a penny isn't worth the copper that's in it.

So yes, yes they should be.

EDIT: For clarification, all card-based transactions remain as is, and cash transactions are rounded to the nearest five cents. Sounds good to me.

 

[lacktheknack]

there was once a man who had to pay a ticket of 100 pounds
he payed in cents. The woman behind the booth refused to take the 10000 cents, and the man called the police. the man won, and the ticket got payed.

PENNIES AND CENTS ARE MONEY TOO!
stop hating on the little buggers, as they make excellent trolling material

In Canada, it's ILLEGAL to pay for something over 25 cents in pennies. If you force it, you get fined.

Removing them entirely skip that step, which I support, because trolling IRL infuriates me.

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

I'm in favour of it. Not only do they cost a lot to make, but also to distribute. It all amounts to a waste of money for something that likely just collects in a jar anyway.

even if you change something that now costs $0.99 to $1.00, you'll still need to pay an extra $0.13 in tax, meaning that you still need pennies for change.

Apparently the prices are being rounded (if something would cost 5-7 cents, it's rounded down; 8 or 9 cents is rounded up) so as to eliminate the need for them completely.

 

[lacktheknack]

I thought this was a Canadian thread for a moment, since we're doing that right now. And it makes sense, I don't think anyone actually uses pennies.

I thought it was a Canadian thread too, lol.

For the non-Canadians out there, all that has happened, is that the Canadian mint has stopped making pennies. Pennies are still in circulation, you can still use them to buy stuff, and people still give you them with change, but there will come a day when they are just not around.

That's not what my bosses told me...

I was told that, come September, pennies are invalid. All cash transactions are rounded to five cents, and pennies will be exchanged for nickels/dimes/quarters/etc. at banks for a while afterwards.

 

[lacktheknack]

Canada is in the process of removing pennies, but I'm not really sure about the details of the whole thing and since sales taxes are not included in the price on the label, even if you change something that now costs $0.99 to $1.00, you'll still need to pay an extra $0.13 in tax, meaning that you still need pennies for change.

$0.99 + 13 cents tax = $1.12 = $1.10.

That's the idea.

 

[monkey_man]

there was once a man who had to pay a ticket of 100 pounds
he payed in cents. The woman behind the booth refused to take the 10000 cents, and the man called the police. the man won, and the ticket got payed.

PENNIES AND CENTS ARE MONEY TOO!
stop hating on the little buggers, as they make excellent trolling material

In Canada, it's ILLEGAL to pay for something over 25 cents in pennies. If you force it, you get fined.

Removing them entirely skip that step, which I support, because trolling IRL infuriates me.

I thought Canadians knew how to have fun! Even in boring Holland you may pay in cents
oh well, They still deserve to exist

 

[Grygor]

Edit: Also, while you're at it, include your sales tax on the cost labels.

Impossible. Sales tax on a single 4.99 TV dinner is different from an entire cartful of groceries. Sales tax here is applied to the overall total and not the price of any one item, hence you cannot put it on the label. It's also different in every state, with some states not having one at all, so you can't put it directly onto the product package either.

Heck, in the US, sales tax can vary from city to city - for example, the city I live in funds its public library system with a 0.125% sales tax, on top of the 8.25% sales tax collected by the state.

As an even more complex example, Washington state collects sales tax (6.5%, plus assorted city and county sales taxes) - but in the city of Vancouver, WA, which is part of the Portland, OR metro area (Oregon being a state with no sales tax), businesses are not required to collect sales tax from Oregon residents.

 

[Arakasi]

No. Precisely because regardless of £0.99 or $0.99 or whatever sales, pennies are needed, purely to serve as base units. Without a base unit, mathematically speaking, you're going to be screwed when it comes to adding or subtracting values. There's no feasible way of standardising prices everywhere so that every single transaction will result in more than a single penny difference between other currency values, meaning that when dealing with multiple transactions you are pretty damn likely to need a penny somewhere down the line. This doesn't just apply to single penny difference either. In the UK the next size denomination is 2p, then 5p, then 10p. In the US, isn't it straight up to 5 cents, then 10 cents? You'll thus have the same problem when dealing with 2p, 3p, 4p, etc. differences.

Simply put, base units are essential, and thus getting rid of the penny would cause more problems than it solves.

We only have 5 and 10 cents in Australia, because our government was smart enough to get rid of 1 and 2 cent pieces.

Base units are far from essential, you just round up (or down), or put actual prices like $10 instead of $9.99

 

[DasDestroyer]

Canada is in the process of removing pennies, but I'm not really sure about the details of the whole thing and since sales taxes are not included in the price on the label, even if you change something that now costs $0.99 to $1.00, you'll still need to pay an extra $0.13 in tax, meaning that you still need pennies for change.

$0.99 + 13 cents tax = $1.12 = $1.10.

That's the idea.

Ah, makes sense, thanks!
Should have realized it makes more sense to round AFTER tax...