New Bipartisan Bill Would Let The US Mint Alter The Metal Content Of Coins To Save Money

I'd like to round any total over $1 to the nearest quarter, except rounding is mucked up by arcane state laws. For example, New Jersey requires sellers to round to the nearest cent when calculating sales tax, per their site https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/ta...thetax.shtml It seems reasonable to me for a seller to round and pay any sales tax difference out of his pocket, except you know someone will challenge that in court, and the outdated laws will support them.

Did you get a chance to read the prior summary I put earlier in the thread that one of the potential metallic alternatives is ready for implementation just pending congressional authorization to do so? To add some more info not in there, the alternative is referenced as 80/20. The alternative is a seamless variant to the present 75 percent copper, 25 percent nickel alloy used for the 5-cent coin and as the cladding for the dime, quarter dollar, and the Kennedy half dollar, but the 80/20 uses more copper, less nickel and adds manganese. The 80/20 composition is actually 77 percent copper, 20 percent nickel and 3 percent manganese from what I read as some might want to know. Seamless means substitutions that would require little or no modification to coin-accepting equipment. So hope that is helpful info.

And unfortunately they found nothing apparently that would lower the cost of the cent. @Hondo, U.S. Mint researchers identified a copper-plated steel cent as an alternative to the copper-plated zinc cent. The option would be seamless, with the same dimensions and weight as the current cent, but a different electromagnetic signature

Another wildcard is that EU tags copper and nickel as strategic metals and pushing for zinc. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) unveiled by the European Union adds the two major industrial metals to a list that had previously focused on more niche minerals such as cobalt, lithium and rare earths. Copper is used in renewable energy systems and for wiring in electric vehicles (EVs) while nickel is a major component in many EV batteries. https://www.mining.com/web/eu-tags-...-wants-more/ and https://copperalliance.org/wp-conte...ials-Act.pdf

that 80/20 seems like a lot of fuss for such a small change in copper and nickel percentages

re changing the cent's core to steel, are there machines other than Coinstar and bank coin counters that still accept cents? heck, even those penny gumball machines disappeared decades ago

Federal law always supersedes state law. If the Federal government nixes everything below the quarter, then NJ has no choice but to round cash sales to the quarter (electronic sales can still go to the cent).

@hid, as the topic of your recent thread was already being covered here, I've merged your thread with the older one.

I look forward to continued discussion!

No.

Cost is already over one cent per cent even before adding the cost of the current copper plated zinc blanks.

Or just make the dime the "new cent" symbolically.

Get rid of the dollar notes and the dollar coins can be the new dime.