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Should the penny be eliminated essay
Economics p2
Should the penny be eliminated essay
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What would our economic system be like without the penny? Would prices be rounded up for better profits, or rounded down for competitive marketing? And, more importantly, why should we care? After evaluating the major points of both sides of the argument, I’ve come to the conclusion that pennies should be redesigned so that they are worth equal to or less than they cost to make, rather than its production coming to a total halt. From what I have discovered so far, there are three big proponents to keeping and redesigning the penny, the first of which having to do with the cost. Believe it or not, according to Jeff Sommer’s article “Penny Wise or 2.4 Cents Foolish,” “In the United States, the mint says, each zinc and copper coin (in other words, each penny) costs 2.41 cents to produce and distribute.” That means that it costs almost 2.5x the original value of the penny to actually produce one, and the Mint makes billion of pennies per year. Sommer also mentioned that “The [US] government -- that is, taxpayers -- lost $60,200,000 on the production and distribution of pennies in the 2011 fiscal year…” Although the penny’s cost efficiency has been improved …show more content…
All this means is that because pennies are worth so little, when a penny drive is organized within a large group of people, with everyone pitching in, the money raised will add up fast. According to Ted Waterhouse’s article “Give a Penny -- Save the Day!” he observed a good example of this principle in action; “Last week, Washington Middle School (WMS) hosted its annual Penny Drive for Charity. Students from every grade brought in bags and jars for pennies, and, with everyone’s assistance, they raised over $3,000 in one week!” The main point that the article has clearly made is “because they are worth so little, people don’t mind donating them to charity,” and I couldn’t have said it
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.
We strive on making everything more efficient. As stated by a www.globe.com article, “The National Association of Convenience Stores and Walgreens drug store chain estimated that handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds to each cash transaction (remember that we are including the occasional customer who spends 30 seconds looking for the penny in his pocket)” (Source B) That is a lot of unneeded time. When you get the penny back does it mean anything to you? It was also estimated that if you add those 2.5 seconds, it equates to 4 hours per year handling pennies. In keeping with the thrive and efficiency to move along in America, you can be using those 4 hours for something much more productive. As another example, say you are walking down the street and you see a penny on the ground, will you stop and pick it up? You most likely will not pick it up because it has no value. Now what if it was a nickel, or a quarter? Will you pick it up? Most people will definitely pick it up. A penny is just a waste of time. Finding a penny at the bottom of your pocket or in your bag drives cashiers crazy. There would be no need for this wasted time if we abolished the penny. The penny is stopping every great American from pursuing the next biggest breakthrough or
For her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich, a middle-aged female investigative journalist, assumed the undercover position of a newly divorced housewife returning to work after several years of unemployment. The premise for Ehrenreich to go undercover in this way was due to her belief that a single mother returning to work after years of being on welfare would have a difficult time providing for her family on a low or minimum wage. Her cover story was the closest she could get to that of a welfare mother since she had no children and was not on welfare. During the time she developed the idea for the book, “roughly four million women about to be booted into the labor market by welfare reform” were going to have to survive on a $6 or $7 an hour wage; the wage of the inexperienced and uneducated. This paper will discuss Ehrenreich's approach to the research, her discoveries, and the economic assumptions we can make based on the information presented in her book.
Replacing Jackson from the twenty dollar bill could only benefit America 's image problem. Acknowledging the injustices of history, America would reflect intolerance for hypocrisy, and a progress from the past. The replacement would show that America promotes power in both morality and justice.
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.
Back in the 1900’s kids all over would be so grateful to find a penny. Doing so meant they got to run to the local candy store. William Safire, author of “Abolish the Penny” agrees with the notation of abolishing the penny. In Safire's article he makes a strong claim stating that you, “can’t buy anything with a penny any more” (Safire). Expanding on that claim, there is no point in keeping something around that is taking a resource of zinc and copper, when the resource is being wasted to the garbage. Back in the day it would be absurd to throw such a useful coin away. There is no real need for the coin so keeping it around is simply
If you check your pockets, how many of you have pennies in them? Not many people I assume, that is because most people don't carry around pennies anymore. Denver Nicks from Time.com says
Millions of Americans work full-time, day in and day out, making near and sometimes just minimum wage. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them in part by the welfare claim, which promises that any job equals a better life. Barbara wondered how anyone can survive, let alone prosper, on $6-$7 an hour. Barbara moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, working in the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon realizes that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts and in most cases more than one job was needed to make ends meet. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all of its glory, consisting of
By many aspects the one dollar note will just be a symbol of America and the American wealth, however we will see that it can convey way more than that. First and foremost, the one dollar note, is something judged to be common knowledge, everybody can approximately see what it looks like and they will not look in depth of what can be one of the most symbolic items of the United States of America. First printed in 1863, the dollar note was here to represent an abstract, yet know by everyone, money. Before then, coins were just the symbolic way of representing money.
Obligations, an act of binding oneself to another, through social, political, or economic means. The arguments of this week’s reading center on obligations and reveal the unintended ties to one another. Kristen Mann's argument discusses the effect of the slave trade in the Nigerian city of Lagos. Her argument forms around the political effects of the slave trade and the centralization of power in the city. The slave trade created an obligation to those in power. Through, the lower-class work with the wealthy slave traders created an obligation to protect, and lend economic support. This idea of obligation to power is important to understand the way in which aid shifts obligation of power. Importantly, The Trouble with Aid, argument’s shows
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.
According to thespruce.com, with an updated article, to make a penny, it costs 1.66 cents. That is 0.66 cents more than it is actually worth. Because the U.S government makes around 4 billion pennies, according to CGP Grey, it all adds up to $6,640,000,000 wasted on the production of pennies. This is way too much money wasted on a useless coin that provides no benefit to the economy and could be used on so many other useful things. When you think about where our taxes are going, you probably wouldn’t think about a piece of zinc that is worthless. If the penny gets abolished, our taxes would go to actually useful things. Also, in the future, when coppers price gets risen, the 5% of copper that is in a penny will make the price rise a lot. So the number earlier that is wasted each year could get larger in the future. If we continue the production of pennies, the U.S economy will suffer