Should The Penny Be Taxed

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Recommended: Benefits and disadvantages of the penny

Imagine that you are shopping. The person in front of you is just about to finish up, but just as you expect them to pull out a dollar or a credit card, they pull out a small jar full of coins, mostly filled with pennies. You then realize you will be there for a while. That situation is a general shopper’s worst nightmare. The penny is one of the most costly coins for the U.S. Mint, and is generally not needed in usual shopping situations. The penny should stop being minted because they cost more than a penny to distribute and make, they cost money and time to lose, and they don’t affect prices. One reason the penny should stopped being minted is the fact that one penny costs more than a penny to produce. John Green, author of The Fault In Our …show more content…

Sebastian Mallaby says, “...handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds per cash transaction. Assume that the average citizen makes one such transaction every day, and so wastes (to be conservative) 730 seconds a year. The median worker earns just over $36,000 a year, or about 0.5 cents per second, so futzing with pennies costs him $3.65 annually.” This shows that pennies are not only worthless, but waste our time as well. When we use pennies, the cashier is losing money because we decided to use pennies. Also, pennies can cause costly injuries. A study done on the cost of foreign objects in body to remove concluded that the average cost for penny related injuries was $1169.78. This is very costly and can cause even higher hospital bills because pennies have zinc in them, an element need to survive, but if given high amounts, it can poison the average person. This causes that high $1169.78 to go up higher so doctors can remove the zinc. An infant needs around 4 mg of zinc a day, but if they swallow a penny, which is 97.5% zinc, which can be near deadly results for a baby. This shows that pennies are very expensive when used and

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