Why pennies need to go: They have no real value - Deliberately Random

On my way to class this morning, I stopped to grab a cup of coffee. Being that I was already late, I told the cashier to keep the three penny change. What a mistake that turned out to be.

My next three purchases of the day all came out to amounts ending in either a one or a six. You know what that means, don't you? I was a penny short from having exact change all day. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Now I believe in karma. I am a firm believer that what goes around, comes around. Everything happens for a reason, blah, blah, blah. I am totally in favor of those little "take a penny, leave a penny" cups at 7-11. I have always had good luck with eliminating my pocket change when I've left and taken pennies from those jars. I guess tipping some barista three cents just doesn't have quite the same effect on my "exact change" vibes.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing inherently against the penny. I just don't like to jingle when I walk or have a bunch of loose change at the bottom of my purse. The worst is cleaning my apartment and finding loose change everywhere. It's just one of those little annoyances in my life. Besides, the penny isn't worth anything, anyway.

Not to say that it never was. The penny has definitely had its moment in the sun. Ever hear of penny candy? There even used to be things available to buy worth only half of a penny. But that is all behind us, along with poodle skirts, big hair and innocent high school girls.

So why bother keeping the penny in circulation?

Well, for one, you can still use pennies at toll booths and (if memory serves correctly) at stamp machines in Illinois. Then again, they are the "Land of Lincoln." I think its an obligation or something. Of course, the important thing to remember is that it is Illinois. Hardly a strong-hold of the American popular sentiment.

I understand if the U.S. government is trying to pay homage to Lincoln via the Treasury. However, I don't think people are going to forget him if they stopped making pennies. He's a pretty famous guy on his own. Besides, he's got his picture on the $5 bill. With how large they made him on the new and even-easier-to-counterfeit version, good ol' Abe is pretty hard to miss these days.

To then add insult to injury, the penny is not even fully copper anymore. It's made of zinc and is then simply plated in copper. The last fully copper Lincoln penny hasn't been made since 1982!

I understand people have concerns over the issue of having the correct change to pay for things. I myself had that problem today (see above). However, as both a part-time cashier and a consumer, I would gladly round prices to the nearest five or 10 cent increment in order to eliminate this worthless coin. While, sensibly, we should be rounding down, we could even round up and I doubt anyone would notice or care.

Minting pennies that no one uses is costing the U.S. government (read, you-and-me taxpayer) money that could be much better spent. For example, we could really use a 35-cent coin. (Another little annoyance in my life ? needing to put two coins into pay phones.) Or we could use the extra cash to pay off the new and imroved national deficit Dubya created.

The penny has become as archaic as Atari and it's time we give it a proper burial into the archives of American history.