Ban the Penny

“When people start leaving a monetary unit at the cash register for the next customer, the unit is too small to be useful,” once stated by Gregory Mankiw, a professor of Economics at Harvard University. Since making its first debut to the United States in 1793, the penny coin has seen many parts of the ground, donation boxes, and in the trash. What the penny needs is a real home so that they can be used properly but they are not getting what they deserve. The penny coin has evidently grown out of what it was intended to be used for. However, the United States continues to mint them without any sufficient reasons to do so. The penny coin is not being used to its full potential and yet the United States still insist on keeping the penny coin in circulation. How does an individual allow for a penny coin to have a promising future if the penny coin constantly faces neglection? They wouldn't be able to. If people are willing to toss away pennies so carelessly, it should be discontinued because of the minimal uses and values it holds. After all, it's a small denomination so it can't create a huge impact.

The penny coin has been exposed to inflation for way too long. It has destroyed the value the penny once held which now renders it helpless and useless. The cost of production is simply too high. Prices of copper and zinc have skyrocketed, but the United States still continue to mint them. Having said that, it costs roughly 1.79 cents to produce a penny. According to Jeff Gore, founder of Citizens for Retiring the Penny, the U.S. Mint “produces about 7 billion pennies a year at a cost of $100 million.” This is a huge deficit that could be easily negated if pennies were eliminated. Pennies are not worth the time to make. If the opportunity cost for producing pennies every year is in the multi-million dollar range, then it can only get worse in the long run.

There has also been many depressing tragedies for the penny, many of which come from

Huynh 2

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