Let's discuss the U.S. penny, and if we should need it in our modern society.

Get rid of useless denominations - it's already happened before, with the mythical half a cent coin, so there's already precedent.
Frankly, I don't know why this needs to be a discussion; coins themselves have already lost a lot of practicality and value, so removing the ones with smaller denominations should be a foregone conclusion.

As a primer on the subject I quite like

FAST6191 said:

As a primer on the subject I quite like

Click to expand...

Very interesting.

Even here in Mexico, a country with a significantly lower purchasing power compared to the US, our 20 cent coin (equivalent to about 0.01 USD) is rarely used. It's still being minted, though.

@RichardTheKing Fun fact: the US half-cent coin was worth more than a 2022 penny when it was removed from circulation.

As someone who works as a cashier, most of the reason that I even have to give people change in pennies is because of sales tax. Everything at the store that I work at prices things to at least five cents, so it's just the 6% percent income tax that requires pennies. Getting rid of pennies would require someone to get shorted: Either the business needs to take a loss or the customer has to. While I wouldn't bemoan large corporations loosing at most four cents on a transaction, they're not likely to be very happy about it, and would probably lobby against it. While most customers wouldn't care about loosing the four cents, I'm sure that most of the people still paying with cash would be annoyed, to say the least. While I'm sure that things would balance out eventually, the temporary discomfort and annoyance usually seems to be enough to keep system wide changes from happening. It took a world-wide pandemic to finally cement something as cost saving and useful as working from home in the modern work environment, how likely is it that anyone will give a hoot about something as abstract as saving tax dollars on penny minting?
Just some thoughts.

Hey Charles, great topic to dive into! I totally agree that the penny's value seems to have dwindled over time, especially with the effects of inflation. It's funny how we often overlook those little copper coins in our pockets. And you hit the nail on the head with the convenience factor – who's really counting out pennies at the checkout these days when digital payments are so much more efficient?

You make a solid point about the cost of producing pennies, too. It's interesting how something that seems insignificant can actually add up in terms of tax dollars. Personally, I've found myself accumulating pennies in a jar, only to wonder what I'll actually do with them in the end.

But hey, you're right about one thing – they can serve as a valuable lesson for kids about money and saving. Maybe it's time we start thinking about the penny's place in our modern economy.