Poll: Should the United States government eliminate the penny?

Because government is not a business. Government exists for different reasons, and has different motives and goals.

And businesses sometimes do manufacture certain things at a loss which are required to support other aspects of the business. Spare parts, for example. The sum total of the effort to make and distribute spare parts is often a money loser, but mandatory for the business to sell the primary goods.

 

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I find it interesting that so many have such strong opinions on this topic, in several directions, but few, if any, have the hard data.

How much money does the mint lose on cents ?
Does the mint make money on other denominations ? If so how much ?

The facts are easily obtained and the math easy. But few, if any, bother.

Here's what I found* :

The Mint loses about $19 million a year on cents. Interestingly, they lose almost twice that on nickels, but no one seems concerned about that. ($32 million loss on nickels)

Other denominations make a fantastic seniorage profit; combined, they show a profit of $657 million. This leaves a net profit of almost $606 million.

Interesting that the profit ($657 million) blows away the loss ($51 million) by almost 13 to one - and yet no one talks about it. Worse, the clueless "Fourth Estate" media doesn't bother to mention it. Somehow, I doubt they "did the math" either.




* I originally worked this up for year 2007. Business strikes only; no proofs, commems, bullion etc.

 

I was hoping someone would show up and just Show The Numbers.

Thank you.

 

While the current value of the cent allows for more efficient transactions because they can be calculated with more precision (there are more discrete values that can be created with a penny at today's prices than without a penny), I agree that they are basically annoying or useless. And this is coming from someone who loves Lincolns very much.

Thus, it is either time to get rid of the penny *or* ..... drumroll.....

REVALUE THE CURRENCY!

Yes, there are a number of issues that arise with revaluation, such as replacing the money supply, changing prices in the economy, "microtaxes" from fewer discrete price levels, etc. that all have costs of their own. However, it is well overdue as prices are now over 20x higher than they were pre-WWI and, as has been beaten to death, almost nothing can be purchased for a cent. Let's take the currency back 100 years and replace every dollar with $0.05 new dollars. At least then "millionaire" would be significant again (I am getting sick of hearing about the millions of millionaires), and price levels would once again make our beloved cent meaningful.

As an aside, with today's copper price of $2.93/lb, pre-1982 cents have $0.0191 of copper content. Why aren't these being hoarded like silver coins pre-1965?

 

P.S. Does anyone else find my error cent with Lincoln "punched" in the face symbolic of this conversation?

 

Sorry for spamming this thread, but just answered part of my own question:

The US Mint, which is a part of the US Department of the Treasury, in anticipation of the business of melting down US cents (pennies) and US five-cent coins ("nickels") for profit, implemented new regulations[12] on December 14, 2006 which criminalize the melting of cents and nickels and place limits on export of the coins. Violators can be punished with a fine of up to $10,000 USD and/or imprisoned for a maximum of five years.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin) (even wiki calls it a penny... stupid hive mind!)

 

This is true...but that does not apply to the coins. There is no need for the cent, none. So, by discontinuing it...the government could save some money in these hard economic times. Why would we waste money when the economy is so bad?

 

More than 56% of those responding to this poll oppose discontinuing the cent (for various reasons). 56% find some need for the cent.

True, but $19 million is chicken feed; it's 0.0014% of the $1.4 trillion deficit. If one is concerned about saving money, why subvert the will of 56% of the people to save 0.0014% ? Shouldn't we go after big ticket items ?

I have some ideas, but that gets into politics etc. So I put some musings here :

edited - too political for this forum

 

I believe that the majority of that 56% want to keep the cent because they are coin collectors and like it as such. But, for actually using on a daily basis...I'm sure most would bet that is is useless...because it is.

As far as "chicken feed"...you're right, it is nothing. But, every little bit helps. A little "feed" here and there and you have accomplished something. But, I'm not going to get into a political argument because 1. it's against the rules (which is why I'm not responding to your linked thread...because it's still against the rules in the general forum, so for that reason I hope you will remove my quote from it...thanks ) and 2. there is no point in arguing with someone who doesn't see the value in trying to trim any waste (no matter how small) from a budget.

 

I use coins every day ...every morning I stop in a farm store for coffee @ 1.37 a cup....so do alot of other people and there is always a line out the door..coffee , smokes, gum etc....using the exact change helps the line keep moving. I vote no we should keep our pennies....now I'm going to throw gas on the fire...We should do aways with most commeratives and the dollar bill! Canada done away with the dollar note years ago. most of our dollar coins have ended up in Equador two reasons coins don't rot in a rain forest as notes do! And the saq. dollar looks alot like most of the people of Equador. It's a win win for them US $$$.... looks like the natives who live there and they don't need to mint or print coins. AS Americans we are spoiled....I never like the SBA dollar or Ike for that matter but we are spoiled anything that don't work for us we want to trash.....Both parites have way too much pork in their bills.....to mint or print money that is not used is a waste of tax dollars.....I will bet you this there are bags in the hunderd of thousands of SBA dollars stocked piled in a vault somewhere that we paid to have minted and now pay to store. Another example of this is about 20 years ago maybe less the goverment gave away blockes of American cheese in 5 lb. loafs......to the poor etc. why because of dairy subsidies..and the fact it cost more to store it in cold storage than to just give it to someone who really could use it. Keep the penny....maybe give Abe a break and lets start a new look for our coinage.

 

Yak you need to get out more offten lol:crying:

 

It wouldn't matter if the mint trimmed some expenses. As I've said 80 times here, taxpayer money doesn't go to the mint. It is a self sustaining enterprise. That means no government funding whatsoever. Find another porkbarrel to overturn.
Guy~

 

Perhaps if this poll were held on the "CREDIT~CARDS~R~US" B Board the results would be different.

But I use exact change daily. They speed transactions when/if used.

 

Waste is waste no matter what.....be nice if one branch of the goverment could give back to the treasure instead of taking their budgets to the max! Sorry if I have over stated my views on this thread it was not my intention to do so. but the way I see it right now we only use 4 coins the penny , nickel , dime and quarter....try to find 1/2's at your bank or even dollar coins...most banks don't order them as there is no demand for them except by us collectors. In closing Ilike to say just one more thought....we are going in the direction of being paperless....direct deposits ,debit cards, credit cards etc......I feel sorry for the next generation not being able to hold a dollar or any paper / or minted currency in their hands. The item they worked so hard for will now be a number on a computer screen or statement. I remember my dad each week with his earnings sitting down at the kitchen table with the brown envelopes and a stack of fresh $1 bills. putting aways for the family bills so much in each envelope. Then paying the milk man ,the insurance man, the mortage....it was a simpler time....and a DOLLAR was a dollar! And a nickel to a kid on a summer afternoon was an cold snowball or single dip of ice cream on a cone. And yes we did bend over to pick up a penny as that penny would buy a piece of candy. And for the record I still do...and not ashamed of doing so.

 

That's fine, but if the cent was eliminated then purchases would just be rounded to the nearest 5 cents on the price...exact change would still be useful.

I couldn't have said it better myself. :thumb:

 

Yes I dig out the smaller notes and spend them first. I don't use the larger notes until I'm out of the smaller ones.

And that is what the Mint does. Their budget comes out of the seniorage and then the excess is turned over to the Treasury general fund. Their budget pays for the metal and all their expenses, the metal is used to make the next years coinage and the next years budget come out of the seniorage from those coins with the excess going to the Treasury and so on.

 

This is exactly what they should do, but if they cut out the production of coins they lose money on...then a greater profit could be turned over to the Treasury general fund.

 

Agreed.

 

If you add up all the waste associated with making and using pennies it will amount to about 20,000 lives. Actually this might be too low if the .0014% number is correct since .0014% of the US population is 21,000+.

Imagine that!!! A whole small city whose population is condemned to a life of accomplishing nothing at all, of being a drag on the entire nation. Of being toxic debris known to kill animals and pets and likely to have killed or sickened babies.

Maybe if the country weren't saddled down with idiocies like pennies we could instead teach a few inner city children how to read and write. Just maybe if we started rooting out nonsence that is counterproductive and worthless we could actually start making some progress again.

Where better to start than the penny?

 

Although this thread is about the penny, we're talking about saving money for the government here, so....

The life expectancy of a paper $1 is just a few years. Does anyone have figures on how many $1 bills are turned over each year due to them wearing out, and the associated culling/destruction/replacement costs? Do away with the paper and use $1 coins instead.

Waste, waste, waste...everywhere you look.