"Cents And Sensibility" Strikes Again

Think about the fact that a cent gets used (spent) thousands of times per coin. Their true value isn't in the metals within, but in the utility of facilitating financial transactions over and over again.

The real waste of money is in $1 bills that wear out in a relatively short period of time, and have to be printed again and again.

There is no reason at all to keep the cent.
It has zero purchasing power.
Penny candy is long gone from drug store counters.
It only benefits what ever industry that the metal comes from...right now zinc.
Just get rid of the darn things and be done with it already.

This is false. Most cents are used one time then tossed aside. Like CK said, they have to mint billions for a reason.

They have a particularly long life sitting in bank vaults.

A lot of repeated discussion here, but that's natural.

Just some of my own thoughts on the matter. To me, this is a huge change (heh) in the same direction as the rest of the world.

Most nations in the world have changed up most of their coins to being steel-based, many of which in the 2010's, but some even earlier. Just look at Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Kazakhstan, New Zeeland, the UK and Mexico. Most countries of these have simply changed most of their coins' composition to that of the original metal-plated steel. New Zeeland, the UK and Mexico have launched new steel-based lower denominations from previously non-steel compositions. Many other island nations like the Bahamas, Fiji, Barbados, Cayman Islands just to mention the same have done the same, and they all mostly all have the same denominations as the US, including a 1 Cent coin (to fuel the fire: Barbados ridded themselves of the 1 Cent coin not too long ago and have had a $1 since the 1980's, steel since the 2010's)

So this
is absolutely a valid concern. In fact, the current composition for Dimes and Quarters (Cupronickel-plated copper) is not very common today, the only coin that immediately comes to mind is the Thai 5 Baht coin.

Note how the proposal only applies to commonly circulating coins, not others like half dollars and dollars.




Considering the US is a lobby-loving country, shouldn't this be a possible stopping power of this proposal? Seems out of my mind for these people to not do anything about this proposal.




Since US coins are worth next to nothing buying-power wise, the counterfeit argument seems almost voided. Perhaps it'd be profitable to counterfeit 25 cents, but I doubt it would be a very lucrative business, maybe even for the Chinese?

As for durability reasons, is this actually an issue? I doubt US coins are subject to heavy wear and damage in large scale, like many modern African nations' coins. The way they are treated, lying in coin jars without being spent for times on end doesn't account for much wear or damage, and effectively makes the coins last over time.

Sure, but I was mostly thinking about quarters and dimes, for notes wear is definitely an issue. A lot more rubbing against a less durable material, almost goes without saying. I understand that steel coins would still be cheaper to produce (copper is actually quite expensive in comparison to other metals, nickel too) but my reasoning was rather if this was an issue big enough to actually motivate the change in composition.

How hard is it to ignore pennies? Ask for no pennies in your change or give them away. I never saw why people care so much about them. Yes, I wouldn't mind the elimination of the penny, but I wouldn't mind if they kept them either. The U.S. Mint's losing money for pennies is their own business and it's probably not even that big a deal considering the profit they make from higher-denomination coins.

Wasted money is still wasted money. Would you throw ten dollars in the trash every day knowing your paycheck was way more than that? I did not think so.