Sam Yang
Ms. Greene
Pre-AP English I - 1
Penny Nuisance
Decades ago in the United States, items did not cost much. Plenty of things could be bought for a penny or at least less than a nickel. Nowadays, inflation has occurred so much that nothing useful can be bought with a single penny, unless you consider googly-eye finger puppets as useful. Pennies are no longer needed and the only use they have nowadays is to be stored in glass jars.
The penny is currently outdated in our economy and worthless. As you probably know the penny is worth a hundredth of a US dollar. This is all well and good, except the fact that it takes one and one half a cent more to make a penny. Pennies are made of copper and zinc, two metals that have recently soared in price. Because of the high value of these metals, a penny is worth more melted down than as U. S. currency. This means every time the U.S. Mint produces one penny it wastes one and a
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This, however, is wrong.But this can be solved by rounding it to the nearest five cent, this is something that Canada has already done and it seems to be working out just fine for them. Prices will now just be rounded to a zero or the nearest five cent. Losing a penny or two wouldn’t be anything to worry about. Some sources may say, “How would we get rid of a coin?”. The answer is the same way we got rid of minted coins in America before. From 1793 until 1857 the United States produced a half cent coin. Today the idea of a half cent is unbelievable, but when the working wage is one dollar a day the half cent makes a little more sense. As inflation went up, and the worth of the dollar went down, the government was able to realize that a half cent coin might not be such a good idea anymore. The Congress decided to cease minting of the half-cent and it became a thing of the past. We see the same problem with the penny today. It just isn’t useful
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.
Throughout the past decade, costs of everything have skyrocketed. According to Source C, America used to have “five and dime stores;” now its a dollar store. In addition, no one can buy anything with just a penny anymore. The source also made a fair observation that these worthless zinc disks are, “behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball. Quarters and dimes circulated; pennies disappear because they are literally more trouble than they are worth.” According to a New York Times article, “it takes nearly a dime today to buy what a penny bought back in 1950.” The penny is still stuck in the 1950s while America just keeps moving on. As stated by Mark Lewis in his concept of establishing a bill, “the bill would not ban pennies, but merely discourage their use by establishing a system under which cash transactions would be rounded up or down.” (Source A) This motive will help keep the America exceed and
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
Many of Americans view the every day penny as only one cent that carries only little to no value, which is why they wind-up stashed away at the back of drawers. What most people don’t have a clue is the value it once held back in the days where a can of coke was about one cent. Our very own citizens who once fought battles and came home scarred knew that the penny wasn’t just one cent, it was the blood shed, their fallen brothers, and the never ending tears that symbolized one single Lincoln. Pennies are worth more than their currency, they are the history of our home and the beginning of where we stand today.
The introduction of the book “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, it talks about where Barbara and the editor, Lewis Lapham discovered the idea of this book. The two were having a lunch at an expensive restaurant and Ehrenreich concern was how people with low job skilled are able to make living with small income. Her primary concerned was towards women who are about to be on job hunt because of the reformation of the government welfare. Ehrenreich stated that she could not see herself going through this. She even mentioned how her fellow college student were seeking for jobs in the 1960s just to be part of the working class, and even some family were surviving off low wages however she was never interested doing them tasks. Since she has Ph.D. in biology, Ehrenreich established a scientific approach to create some limitations while going undercover as an unwell educated, divorce, and a lower person of who she really is. She going
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.
A buyer brings along with him snacks that he would like to purchase in a dollar store: chocolate chip cookies, a Pepsi, gummy bears, and a bag of chips. He waits in line, eager to consume this huge delight. It is his turn, and he hurriedly placed his treats on the counter, waiting anxiously to pay immediately. The cashier replies to him, “The price will be $5.99, sir.” The buyer takes out five one-dollar bills and four quarters. Not an instance did he ever use a penny in this case, which he thought was useless and meaningless. As you can see, the penny has become quite worthless and diminished in purpose. Many citizens would prefer to round up and pay rather than spend time and look in their
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.
As an aftereffect of inflation, the purchasing power of a unit of money falls. For instance, a pack of gum that costs $1 and if inflation rate is 2% then in a given year will cost $1.02 the following year. As products and services require more cash to buy, the implicit value of that currency falls.
The topic that will be discussed is the manufacturing of U.S money. All of the steps in the process of manufacturing money will be mentioned in the research. The materials of money will be discussed. The origins of the use of paper money in general will also be mentioned. I chose this topic because, everyday thousands of Americans spend money, borrow money, even donate money, so I was just curious on knowing how all of this money is manufactured. I hope to interest you on how our country’s currency is made. I intend to study the history of paper money so that I my know paper money developed over the course of time. These are the items that I plan on researching.