Money was invented to make the exchange of goods and services easier. When it fails to do so, is it still money? When it comes to the penny, the fact that I can find it lying on the street with people mistaking it for trash shows that it’s worthless. The penny is something that most people would gladly throw away, and for good reason. This iconic coin isn’t worth the trouble. If you were to go to the dollar store and use only pennies, it would take one hundred of them to buy anything. If it takes a hundred of something to buy some cheap Chinese-made bubbles, then clearly there’s a problem. Pennies aren’t money, they’re what we use to scratch off lottery cards. It’s time to remove this copper mosquito from circulation and change up our currency in order to make it better and more efficient to use.
Pennies are the only U.S-issued currency that can’t be used everywhere. Vending machines and most toll booths don’t accept them and they are banned from use on overseas military bases. If the army doesn’t use pennies, then what do they do when they need to return one cent in change? They do the same thing all Canadians started doing when they got rid of their penny in 2012, they round up or down. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but this is far better then what we normally do. Most people when given a penny in change will either put it in the stores tip jar or one of those take-a-penny, leave-a-penny cups. So if you’re just going to throw it away upon receiving it, then why even have it at all?
Many feel nostalgic towards the penny. I get it. It’s been around since 1793 and it’s hard letting go. But come on! At this point, it’s not even money. Heck, it’s barely even made out of copper at this point with 97.5 percent of it being zinc. I understand if you see it as a way of honoring Lincoln, but is putting a beloved leader of our country on something that pranksters use to pay off large parking fines with really honoring him? Plus, he’s already on the five dollar bill and we have a giant monument for him. I think we’re good.
Removing the penny is such an obvious course of action it’s surprising that it hasn’t happened yet. Several bills have been proposed since the early 2000’s that would eliminated the penny and just have people round up, but they seem to fade away every time they’re introduced. Still, there is a lot of public support for the penny extinction so I don’t think we’re far from a post-penny America.
So, if the penny is to go extinct, then what should replace it? I believe it would be best to phase out the nickel as well and have 10-, 25-, and 50- cent coins. I also think we should try to make a dollar coin that Americans would actually use. If Canada can have not only a one dollar coin but a two dollar coin, then America is lagging behind in the world. We need to stop making our existing dollar coins (along with the rest of our currency) into collector items and instead usable coinage.
If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of removing the penny from existence, then check out these videos by Youtubers John Green and CPC Grey.
So what do you think, is it time to get rid of the penny? Leave your thoughts in the comments down below.