Why Is A Penny Important

A Penny For Your Thought Everyone at least once in their life has heard the rhyme, “Pick a penny up and all day long you’ll have good luck.” What if I told you that the fun rhyme you have heard since you were a child is more of a lie than you would think. In reality to see a penny and pick it up is more of a burden than a way to grant you good luck for the rest of the day. If anything the penny should be a symbol of bad luck. The United States should simply eliminate their penny because it costs more to manufacture than its face value, other countries have done so without undesirable consequences, and the fear of “Rounding Tax” as a result of the pennies elimination is nothing to worry about.
A commonly discussed reason for getting rid of …show more content…
Although it seems that many people fear an economic collapse if the U.S. was to follow the example of these countries and stop using the penny. “Sweden seems to be getting along fine. New Zealand and Australia no longer have one-cent pieces or two-cent pieces and economic collapse has not happened” (goodcents.co.nz). This means that all these countries have gotten rid of their pennies and have not faced an economic collapse or any economic trouble that resulted from the elimination of their penny. New Zealand even took it one step farther and stopped production and usage of their nickel. Even the US Department of Defense has stopped using the pennies at their overseas bases for more than 30 years and they have not faced any detrimental backlash as a result of it. None of these countries have had problems with their decisions about eliminating their pennies. It would not be difficult for the United States to stop using the penny. “The Coinage Act of 1965 states that there is no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash, unless there is a State law which says otherwise.” as stated by the US …show more content…
are concerned about regarding the elimination of the penny, the price of goods as the result of “Rounding Tax”, is one of the biggest. “Rounding Tax” is the rounding of the cost to purchase products are rounded to the nearest nickel instead of the nearest penny. Their hesitation is understood, though rash and unsupported by facts. For example, many persons fear that if the penny was eliminated in return the “Rounding Tax” would affect poor neighborhoods more than rich neighborhoods. According to a study done by Robert M. Whaples, professor of economics at Wake Forest University, Whaples also “compared a store in a wealthy neighborhood and one in a poor neighborhood of the same city and found that rounding prices has the same effect regardless of the consumer base's socioeconomic status.” This proves the fears that less affluent neighborhoods will be effected greater than more affluent neighborhoods is false, meaning that any effects of the “Rounding Tax” would affect those in different socioeconomic status the same. According to Whaples’ same study, he found that the only people to be affected by “Rounding Tax” in any significant way were individuals who paid cash for purchases that were less than one dollar and ended in a nine. The only prices that would fit that criteria would be; .09, .19, .29, .39, .49, .59, .69, .79, .89, and .99. Almost nonexistent amount of people would be affected by “Rounding Tax” because those