How Long Until People Don't Use Coins Anymore?

I find the comparisons with other countries very informative.

We can always learn. From other countries who have done big things, from other countries who have done small things, and from the things we have already tried.

The federal budget is full of waste and no one wants to act on the countless "little things" because the impact of each seems insignificant. Well, that is total humbug. Killing the cent many be a tiny step, but every tiny step adds up.

Too late. The cost of living going up over the last 30+ years is why the cent has become useless.


Everyone says that about their own pet issues. Somethings has to go first, but no one wants to make the sacrifice.

It is like the people who complain about the record low approval ratings of Congress, but will not admit that their own representative is part of the problem. "Not my guy, he is one of the good ones." The status quo lives on.


I guess that means you want to bring the Half Cent back? Same argument could have been used back then, yet the cent has managed to live on for this long.

Something I have not quite understood is why the assumption that if the penny is eliminated that all prices will be rounded up thus causing high inflation. Why wouldn't totals that end in 6 or 7 be rounded down to the nearest nickel? The assumption that everything will be rounded up seems like a worst case scenario to me and the truth typically lies in between the extremes.

Something that I don't hear too much of is the value of the time it takes to do a transaction with cents. The value of those extra few seconds lost by the cashier, consumer, and everyone in line just to grab between 1-4 cents adds up over billions of transactions. Paying with cents is even more time consuming. When that time is factored in, it is going to negate a good chunk of whatever price increase consumers might face.

Unless all of the transactions of a business just happen to end in a 6 or 7, I have a hard time seeing that argument. I think rounding will be a wash for a business as the gain of 1-2 cents from some transactions will be offset by losses of 1-2 cents from other transactions. I am not aware of a significant cost for a business to have a computer do the rounding as they already do now rounding off to the nearest cent.

@D0uble3Eagle, you can find my earlier posts on rounding. You are right that if the penny goes away, and rounding is implemented, there is no effect on price.

If the penny AND the nickel go away, then rounding means that one out of 10 cash transactions increases by 1 cent.

I work in retail. Most retailers are fair, which means that most retailers will implement rounding the correct way. Those who do not will (deservedly) lose business because word will get around.

The only reservation I have is that people who tend to use cash more are lower income, so whatever small hit to the wallet that takes place from such a change will hit low income people harder. I'm generally opposed to regressive policy measures, so that concerns me.

And finally ... THIS ONLY AFFECTS TRANSACTIONS WHERE YOU HAND SOMEONE CASH AND THEY MAKE CHANGE. Not debit card transactions, not credit card transactions, not EFT, etc. We've alerady heard on this thread from many people who hardly ever use cash, and hence will be completely unaffected.
Price impact is a tempest in a teapot unless you don't have a debit card or a credit card, and every single transaction you make is under $10. It's an illogical fear.

So you think the Half Cent should have never been eliminated. Got it.


I guarantee you that most if not all will round down. They already lose money to processing fees on electronic transactions, they are not going to sweat giving up a few cents on a cash sale. It only takes one to do it before they all do. As tdziemia said, word gets around. Keep your customers happy or someone else will.

As far as rounding they'll just raise the price by 3 or 4 cents then any rounding that occurs will be a higher price than before anyway.

As far as conditioned to view larger denominations it's the way we view money. If you eliminate the penny the nickle seems to be less valuable since it is the new smallest denomination. Same would then happen if that was gone with a dime.

Take Japan for instance, 1000 dollars in the USA would be viewed as a lot of money while 1000 yen is nothing to them. Some of that has to do with the strength of the currency, but it's also from inflation and eliminating smaller denominations.

The larger the smallest denomination is the faster things can rise because whatever the smallest by comparison is will be viewed as a small amount even if it can have a significant impact on someones yearly budget. If we got ride of all changes and just went to 1/2/3/4 dollar bills ect it wouldn't be long until a dollar was viewed as very little because people will be thinking of it in terms of it's peers which are all larger.

Just like if you gave a group of people 50 $1 bills and another group 1 $50 bill, the group with the 50 ones will spend much more freely as the ones are viewed as a small amount while the group with the $50 would be forced to see they are taking a bite out of their large bill. The money is the same but the perceived value of a 50 is higher

Whatever is the smallest ends up getting viewed and a minuscule amount of money that can get thrown around, keeping that denomination as small as possible is better off for consumers