Have pennies become useless in modern times? In the articles “Penny Anti” by John fund, a magazine article, “The Many Faces of the Penny” by J. Wendell Shelton, from a coin collectors’ website,”The Cost of a Penny’ by David R Carroll, which is a letter to an editor, and “Save the Penny-Save the Day!” which is an article from Washington Middle School Chronicle, a student newspaper, the authors try to substantiate whether or not the penny needs to be preserved. Whether or not the penny should be preserved has been a big controversy. The penny, all in all,should not be preserved because it costs more than it’s worth to produce, it could lead to lower prices, and people just don’t use them as often.
First of all, producing a penny costs more than it’s actually worth. In the letter, “The Cost of a Penny,” it states, “ A penny currently costs the United States government 2.4 cents to mint.” One penny almost costs 3 cents to make! “The Treasury loses more than $100 million per year on the coin’s production ,”according to the article “Penny Anti.” A penny isn’t worth the time and effort spent producing it.
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“For example, something currently worth 99 cents may well drop to 95 cents instead of a dollar to avoid the higher price threshold and attract more customers, “as stated in the letter, “The Cost of a Penny.” The consumer would be saving 4 cents in this transaction, and overtime the savings could add up to be thousands. These savings can happen if the U.S. stops producing
The Penny is a wonderful coin. It might only be worth one cent but that one cent can help people in all sought's of situations. The penny should kept in circulation. There are many people that use the penny still in today’s society.
We should keep the penny because it has history, in fact it was “the first currency authorized by the United States” (Lewis). The penny no longer has the value that it used to have, but it is still necessary to make purchases as accurate as possible. The penny may seem like a waste of time to many Americans because it takes so long for cashiers to make change, forcing people to wait in line, but it is actually worth the time spent. The penny helps with keeping prices a cent lower, and therefore stimulating the economy. The penny is important to many people who need the money and for whom pennies still have value.
In 2001 United States Representative Jim Kolbe introduced legislation to Congress to eliminate the penny coin in most transactions. Although this legislation failed, there are still consistent calls to eliminate the penny as the smallest-denomination United States coin. Our nation is founded on passed traditions. Any American can look basically in any place to understand why America has thrived for centuries. Every tradition, sculpture, monument, or artifact gives Americans history about what has occured. The country struggles to destroy any of these long kept traditions. Although some traditions are completely relevant, the use of the penny is of little worth today. Whether the penny is rolling around in your pocket or resting at the
Do we really need pennies? The story of the penny starts in 1792; it came with several different coins including the dime, nickel, quarter, and half penny. The pennies were first made out of 100% copper, but the price of the copper went up, because of inflation, the power of the penny went down. The cause of the mint is to reduce the amount of copper in pennies first from 100% to 95% but then to 5% copper and 95% zinc. Despite the debate in 2006, the value of metal on older pennies rose over one year.
According to source #4, it states, “The one cent has influenced our language, giving us a number of idioms, such as ‘a penny for your thoughts’ (a way to ask what someone is thinking) and ‘not one red cent’ (meaning no money at all).” This is significant because it shows that the penny has affected the English language, giving the language more idioms to use. It is often said that pennies should not be manufactured anymore due to their excessive cost of manufacturing and distribution. Yes, numerous people do acknowledge that fact, but the government can also propose that pennies are to use inexpensive metal, like steel, which makes the entire coin industry save money and has the cost of coins to be cheaper to make.
Have a good look at the penny, what do you see? You probably see nothing but a copper coated circular poor valued cent. Little does everyone know pennies have been around longer than before their grandparents, even their great-grandparents! Matter of fact, it was around so long ago that Abraham Lincoln’s face was not the first design on the penny. I ask that you take the time to consider the American penny’s worth. Without the people’s belief in its value, the penny will be abolished. I see people every day throwing away a penny rather than to put it in their pocket and save it for future uses. Yes a penny is "outdated, almost worthless, bothersome and wasteful" (Safire) piece of junk, but it's has an economic, cultural, and historical significance to the United States of America. The problem is that nobody pays attention to that, and that gives pennies the image of no value. Three good solutions to show the pennies worth include: tolls and vending machines accepting the coin, more charities to keep their penny drives, and historical evidence of what the penny mean to America so that it can be passed on to the future generations.
There is a side to this debate where the penny could win and stay in circulation. To start, the penny has been around for years and years and it has seemed to work for this whole time. This is true, the penny has been around and can be used still in everyday life. The turn side of this, though valid, is with systems changing is is becoming more and more rare for the penny to have a true dire need. One other strong reason to keep the penny alive would be charity. Charity relies on those people who do not necessarily care enough to keep the pennies t drop them off in the donation box. That though, has a simple solution. If the penny were no longer around nickels and dimes would begin to be the change customers and users are no longer wanting. Charity then in result
"As of 2014, the cost of making a penny was estimated at 1.7¢. So yeah, it almost costs two pennies just to make one penny- which makes no sense (pun intended)". Over time, many people have called for the U.S. to stop making pennies. Three reasons why are, we have a lot of coins and bills, not many people carry around cash, and making pennies can waste time, money, and minerals. That is why I believe the U.S. should stop making the penny.
To begin, more than half the amount of pennies made are lost and dropped out of circulation almost immediately. “ Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or—as The Times’s John Tierney noted five years ago—behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball,” as stated from “Abolish the Penny” by William Safire. To explain, while most pennies are disappearing, never to be seen again, the U.S.
In America’s modern day economy, the penny is very useless and irrelevant in our society today. As source C states, “The time has come to abolish the outdated, almost worthless, bothersome, and wasteful penny.” There is not one item that can be purchased with a penny anymore (Source C). As source C states, “it takes nearly a dime to buy what a penny bought back in 1950.” Stores such as the Dollar Store prove how the cheapest items you can purchase are with only a dollar, not a cent. Pennies are shoved out of the economic picture by credit cards and because of the modern-day technology, there are even self-service machines that help convert coins into paper money (Source B). Furthermore, pennies are easily tossed into piggy banks or appear behind chair cushions. It is not used the same way as it was before.
First of all, one of the main reasons that the United States should get rid of the penny is because it is very expensive to make. “The United States government- that is the taxpayers- lost $60.2 million on the production and distribution of pennies in the 2011 fiscal year, the mint’s budget shows, and the losses have been mounting: 27.4 million in 2010, and $ 19.8 million in 2009” ( Source 1). The losses
The penny is a costly item to make--more than its one-cent value. A letter to the editor by David R. Carroll states, “A penny currently costs the United States government 2.4 cents to mint.”
For instance, in the article “Abolish the Penny (Source 3)”, it clearly states, “Where do they go? Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or –as The Time’s John Tierney noted five years ago –behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball.” Adding on, many people view the penny as a useless currency, and they even leave it in hidden places around their own home. The reason why pennies are sometimes located in piggy banks or at the back of sock drawers is that citizens see no purpose in obtaining them. In other words, it seems as if the penny has lost its fame and glory ever since other forms of currency have been established, such as quarters, dimes, and dollar bills. As explained by William Safire, quarters and dimes seem to circulate more often than pennies, and pennies “disappear” due to their worthless value and troubles. Specifically, the reign of quarters and dimes has overtaken the significance of pennies, and as time passes by, the term “penny” might not even be mentioned anywhere around the United States. In addition, more people nowadays tend to use quarters and dimes for due change, leaving the penny to become less essential for our needs. As stated in Source 3, the British and French have already abandoned their low-value coins approximately 30 years ago. This demonstrates the probable
The penny has been in America for centuries, it's a sentimental object for Americans everywhere. However many have debated on whether or not it should be eliminated or continue being made. The penny should be preserved because it is apart of American culture, given to charity, and keeps items cheap.
This meaningless coin is losing money to the mint, and should be abolished. The penny costs 1.4 cents to manufacture each time at the mint. This is causing the mint to lose money to the treasury. Last year, the mint earned $730 million in profit. Many mint officials claim the estimate will be about $45 million due to the cost of metals made in pennies.