I thought they got rid of the penny like four years ago
Trump is going to have a penny turn-in program to add them to his library, then personally sell off the copper to other nations after the American Dollar (and society) collapses.
/s. I hope.
And he would try even though pennies are just zinc coated in copper.
There are still LOTS of pennies out there. There are basements with old mason jars and coffee cans full of them. Once people figure out they don’t have any real value, they’ll get dumped on the market. It will take decades to clear them all out.
I can smell that thumbnail. I can smell her good.
The church crowd collectively shitting themselves over what to leave for a tip at brunch
Church crowd is pretty awful in the grocery industry, too. It was especially bad at my previous store, which was in a deeply evangelical town in Central Alberta. All would be quiet on Sunday until about noon. Then the floodgates would open to the most high-on-their-own-farts religious degenerates. Nobody talked down to you quite like a middle-aged woman in church clothes. And they would plug up all the aisles talking scripture and shit. Fuck, I hated that town.
Oh please, they’ve been using those fake dollar, judgemental prayer notes for years
I’m not familiar. What is that?
They’re slips of paper designed to be folder that look like a folded 5, 10, 20 dollar notes but when you open them its just a prayer or a note about how you’re going to hell for greed because you expected money. Some people leave them as tips for some reason
The reason is that they’re assholes.
They should throw them in the collection plate when that is passed around.
They’ve been planning for this. Church ads with faux dollars printed on the front cost less than a penny to print.
Is this a thing for church people… Are they notorious bad tippers?
Some delusional religious freaks think they are doing you a huge favor by leaving a fake bill that either has a Bible verse and some dumb lesson, or an invite to their church.
They’re giving you the opportunity to save your mortal soul, isn’t that worth more than some pathetic tip? You were never going to get 15% out of those losers anyway.
Or maybe they’re just fucking cheap bastards, using their religion as an excuse, like they use it to justify every other terrible thing they do in life, because they’re Christians.
Yes. The sunday “after church” brunch is considered the worst possible shift in any resturant open for it.
Tends towards self righteous and demanding people who enjoy flaunting status and casting judgement. It also runs older, and older people tend to tip what they tipped in the past, and not keep up with inflation.
$2 might have been nice in 1988, but it isnt going far in 2025.
Also the worst retail customers when they are either finished with lunch or waiting to be paged for their table
church people are notoriously bad everything
it’s why they have to go to church. because they can’t just be good people.
To quote an ex-friend who was also Christian, “A church isn’t a club of saints, its a hospital of sinners.”
The dime is currently worth less than the halfpenny was when it stopped being minted because it wasn’t useful to do so anymore.
This is wildly overdue, and honestly, probably not far enough.
Thanks CGP Grey. You keep moving them goalposts.
Just like how the federal minimum wage needs to be over 22 dollars, not just Fif-Teen bucks an hour </bernie>
…what?
CGP Grey is a youtuber who made a video years ago about stopping printing the penny. when trump announced ending printing the penny, he made basically the same video about stopping printing the nickel, and the dime.
Due to Inflation.
The same reason that Bernie sanders pushed for a $15/h minimum wage, which should itself be inflated from its 2016 amount to 22 bucks an hour.
While I think both of you are making reasonable arguments, I wanted to make fun of the situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58SrtQNt4YE < kill nickels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UT04p5f7U < Kill penniesSure, I mean, I’m also all for raising the minimum wage, as it’s wildly stagnated against inflation. You can be for that and for getting rid of the penny?
Idk, I just don’t understand how I’m “moving the goalposts”? Or perhaps I’ve just misunderstood the point of your comment.
I actually have seen that CGP Grey video before though, and it’s only gotten more relevant as time has gone on, lol. It doesn’t make it bad policy just because Trump is the one doing it.
It’s not bad policy because Trump is doing it. The rationale is sound. The bad part of it is zero guidance was given on how cash businesses (virtually all brick and mortar business) are expected to handle the inability to make exact change in the absence of available pennies, leaving them all to figure it out for themselves.
Idk, I just don’t understand how I’m “moving the goalposts”? Or perhaps I’ve just misunderstood the point of your comment.
CGP Grey made the video for “get rid of the penny”. When they got rid of the penny, he made the video “get rid of the nickel, and the dime.” When the original goal as getting rid of the penny, once that was achieved, he moved the goalposts to get rid of the nickel.
Your statement is in line with CGP Grey’s (correct) viewpoint.
Pointing this out in a facetious manner is meant to be humorous.
Isn’t a halfpenny worth half a penny so a dime is worth twenty times more?
One dollar in 1950 had far more buying power than one dollar does now. Something that cost a dollar in 1950 would cost nearly $14 in 2026.
The halfpenny, when discontinued, could purchase roughly as much as 12¢ could today.
At that time, it was decided that a halfpenny wasn’t necessary, as transactions were of a high enough value that made tracking the numbers to the half-penny needless, and that you could just round to the nearest penny.
The equivalent today would be rounding to either the nearest dime or quarter, eliminating the need for smaller denomination coins.
Please, this is MAGA America, of course it’s a scam. Your post is exactly why we should keep the penny.
There are many, many very wealthy people and corporations out there, and they keep track of every single fucking penny they touch, and they go to War if a single penny is missing. As an example, here you are figuring out the purchasing power of some anachronistic currency that hasn’t been used in 200 years to justify it.
Those same people are now telling us that we, the working people, don’t need to keep track of every one of OUR pennies, because we don’t have enough of them to worry about. Don’t worry, all their cash registers will do the calculations for you, and it will always be fair. We’ll never round UP the numbers so you always end up paying a few cents more for EVERYTHING. It won’t make a difference to you and your few pennies, but they will add up, and make the rich even richer by taking your pennies directly out of your pocket, a penny at a time. What are you complaining about? It’s just a penny.
But it’s my penny, and I want it, and before you call me a cheapskate, I’ll remind the world that those calling me a cheapskate are the ones trying to take MY penny away. If it’s important enough for them to take it from me, then it’s important enough to defend it from them. I’m not giving these Jackals one inch.
Of course, the way around it is to use your debit card for everything, and your purchases will be calculated to the penny. And they will also be able to track every item you purchase, and where you are at any given moment, and every place you’ve been.
So should we bring back the halfpenny? Cause right now they’re scamming you out of all those fractional pennies you could be saving, and that really adds up. They’re up charging you 0.5¢ all the time, and robbing those halfpennies right out of your pocket!!!
But if you’re not for bringing back tracking transactions down to the fractional cent, what makes it different to your mind? Why is that ridiculous, but rounding to the nearest 5¢ is way out of bounds?
Typical bonehead take.
Yeah, that’s what I was getting at - we should bring back the Halfpenney. Good job getting the point, Brainiac.
I wasn’t saying I thought that was your actual position. I was saying that your actual position made as much sense as that.
There’s no difference in kind between rounding to the nearest penny or rounding to the nearest nickel. It’s the exact same thing, and the question is just “where do you draw the line”?
So should the line never change no matter what? Regardless of any real life implications the line is drawn exactly where it was meant to be by God at the beginning of time and it is devoid of context or reason?
If we had massive deflation to the point where tracking to the fractional cent made sense, I would argue that it might be worth printing halfpennies again. But we don’t. And the idea that companies are going to be robbing you of pennies is no more or less reasonable than the idea that they are robbing you of fractional pennies.
Hell, there’s a real chance it’ll go the other way in a lot of cases, as stores will start marking things as $X.95 instead of $X.99. Someone else did the math based on what economists projected the cost to consumers would be, and it came out to 2¢ per person per year. Not exactly a staggering number.
The fact of the matter is that we have to occasionally re-figure at what granularity it’s worth tracking our fractions of a dollar to. Inflation will always be inflating, and in a few hundred years when a loaf of bread is $250 the idea that we would track fractional dollars will seem as antiquated as the halfpenny does now.
A lot of words for a simple concept:
We need pennies because we figure everything to the penny. We don’t need half pennies because nobody figures anything to the half cent.
The wealthy want their pennies, and I want mine, too. Any other concept is just those with the money trying to steal from the citizens, AGAIN.
But something worth a dollar in 1950 is worth the same as something that’s worth a dollar now in 2025.
Okay, let’s try to break it down for you.
Let’s say that, in 1950, you could buy 10 apples for a dollar. Would you agree that, in 1950, 10 apples were “worth” $1? One dollar’s “worth” of apples was 10 apples?
Now, let’s say today I can buy one apple for one dollar. Would you agree that 1 apple was “worth” one dollar? That one dollar’s “worth” of apples was 1 apple?
Now, if we assume that the “buying power” of a dollar is measured in “how many apples a dollar can buy,” that my current dollar is “worth less” than a 1950 dollar, because it purchases me fewer apples? That the two “dollars” have a different “number of apples I can buy” property?
Yes, in each case I’ve purchased a “dollars worth of apples,” but it’s very much meaningful to define how many apples that is, and track how that changes over time.
And if I cancelled the halfpenny because it wasn’t worth having when it could only buy 1 apple, but right now it takes 12 pennies to buy 1 apple, then perhaps I should have gotten rid of the penny a long time ago. And the nickel. And probably the dime.
That’s not how inflation works. “Worth” is a pretty variable term, “buying power” is typically a better description.
Think of it like this, using somewhat made up numbers. In the 50s you could get a cup of coffee for 10 cents from a diner. That same cup of coffee in 2025 costs like 2.50 dollars. Is the coffee “worth” more in 2025? No, it’s the same 8oz cup of coffee but the money has less buying powerBut you give a store a dollar back then and you got a dollar’s worth of goods and now you still do.
You get a dollar’s worth of goods, but the amount of goods you get is less, because a dollar is worth less.
Well the dollar is worth the same (a dollar) but the goods are more expensive.
I assume testfactor means in economic value / purchasing power.
A sensible decision, and one other countries have made before. If anything, this would probably have happened sooner, if US coins didn’t have affectionate nicknames that tended to accumulate sentimental associations. (There are a lot of sayings mentioning pennies, which will now lapse into the realm of archaism, alongside nursery rhymes mentioning pre-decimal British currency. There will also be dudes keen to explain that, actually, a penny was a 1c coin, and some of them will get the details confidently wrong.)
I can think of “penny for your thoughts,” and “I don’t give a red cent,” and arguably the very concept of “penny loafers,” but all of those are already fairly archaic. What are some others?
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Thought one: Did they bother to legislate how cash transactions will work without it?
Thought two: dollars should just become cents. Then we can go back to the days of “ten candies for a penny” that my grandma always talks about and maybe old people will see how unaffordable things really are
Thought one: Did they bother to legislate how cash transactions will work without it?
Congress did not. Apparently it causes issues in some states.
In some states and cities, it is illegal to round up a transaction to the nearest nickel or dime because doing so would run afoul of laws that are supposed to place cash customers and debit and credit card customers on an equal playing field when it comes to item costs. So, to avoid lawsuits, retailers are rounding down.
Per AP
It’s also silly because a bill was introduced in April to answer this question, but it’s just sitting around. You know how busy Congress is nowadays. (Also similar bills have come up in the past, but also just sat around and nothing became of them.)
If you’ll pardon my insanity for a moment, there is something to be said for the Executive branch making a decision that the Legislative branch refused to make. The Legislative have ceded so much power to the Executive that they should be embarrassed. I wish this was front page news about political overreach. Instead it’s just, “Yeah, everyone knows Congress can’t do shit.”
We’re long overdue for an Amendment to bar one branch from ceding its power to another. Biggest catch to that is that it may reinforce the recent ruling on deference. Someone like Trump writing detailed regulations is about as scary as Congress doing it.
Personally I kinda wish that power that Congress refuses to wield shouldn’t be pushable to the executive but instead decays back to the states. Basically cedeing power to the presidency should be effectively impossible, but power decaying back to the states should be the norm.
Basically cedeing power to the presidency should be effectively impossible, but power decaying back to the states should be the norm.
I can’t wait for the yanks to rub in my face that “AcKsHuAlLy, MeDiCaL mEtH iS lEgAl In WeSt ViRgInIa” while ignoring that women initiating divorce is illegal in idaho.
EDIT: maybe I fucked it up, but it’s already intolerable when shitheads brag about “The USA has legal weed” when it’s in certain states with many restrictions, and ignore all the shit that other states ban, like abortion. Or, permit, like child marriage.
Honestly this is at least one of my reasons for trying to reignite regional nationalism. Some states are backwards shitholes deserving of a harrowing while others are semi functional if flawed modern states.
Honestly the entire districting system should be dropped in favor of statewide party list voting.
Gerrymandering has ensured that every district is like a dick shaped blob on every map and your local rep might live further from you than the nearest 3 other reps.
Apparently it causes issues in some states.
… issues that would not be rendered moot by the supremacy clause of the Constitution!? If Congress passes a law saying that because the federal currency will no longer include a $0.01 denomination, all cash transactions must be (either rounded to the nearest $0.05, or must have change values in multiples of $0.05), states are obliged to follow this law. As it is, the mint will just stop making a kind of money, leaving states in the lurch, and potentially inviting lawsuits from state attorneys general.
Yes, they would be rendered moot IF (and hopefully when) Congress passes a law.
The last penny was minted today. Companies have already begun to struggle with a lack of pennies.
This isn’t a problem that will happen if Congress does nothing. This is a problem that is happening because Congress did nothing.
Exactly! TBH, I’m surprised. The GOP’s God King said, “make it so,” and they haven’t done his bidding. The one time their spineless adherence to anything Trump wants could’ve actually been popular, and we get nothing. An astonishing level of incompetence! For shits and giggles, a Democrat should push for the bill to be taken up, just to watch the GOP leadership shoot it down because they can’t take credit for it. An official “not like that.”
That’s the crazy part, they did, back in April!
Two US House members, one Democrat and one Republican, and two US Senators, one Democrat and one Republican introduced the bill.
The bill isn’t even that long, https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3074/text
That’s an easy bipartisan win. I’m not against having a few committee’s review it and getting everything in order… But six plus months for something this simple?!
The “must pass” legislation gets slapped together over a weekend and everyone complains that they don’t get time to read it. They post all over social media a towering bill full of last minute margin changes.
But no one has taken time to move forward a two page pamphlet in six months?
It’s truly mind boggling.
Of course not, they will leave it to the free (unregulated) market.
Thought one: Did they bother to legislate how cash transactions will work without it?
Funnily enough, Canada has not had pennies for a while. (Uh, it’s funny because you’re on lemmy.ca)
In Canada, cash transactions round to the nearest nickel (so $1.03 becomes $1.05, and $1.02 becomes $1.00).
Yes, I know this. :)
That’s what prompted my question. That was legislated so that stores couldn’t pick their own way of doing it.
Ah, great point!
Great, now we can blame millennials for killing the penny. /s
How will we pay each other for our thoughts?
Pay in bulk.
When you want to give one fuck, give 'em a buck.
A buck for a fuck.
Making it hail bouta 5x in cost.
Either a nickel or a bean
Another thing the president is not supposed to be able to do unilaterally.
Welp, so much for adding to my pressed-penny collection
You can still add to it up until every penny currently in the wild has been pressed or destroyed. 🤷♂️
Just another sign of rampant inflation.
Ehh we’ve been long overdue for this, tbh
But penny-pinchers beware: as businesses start rounding up prices, the move is expected to raise costs for shoppers. One study by researchers at the Richmond Federal Reserve estimated that could cost consumers $6m annually.
…or when divided by the population (currently 342 million), under 2 cents per person.
In the US attention has now turned to the nickel, which has a face value of five cents but costs nearly 14 cents to produce. Retiring that coin would have a far bigger impact on shoppers, costing consumers some $55m per year, according to the Richmond Fed study.
…or about $0.16/person.
In exchange, everyone gets to:
- Carry around less change
- Spend less time waiting for change or behind people getting change at the register
- Pay for things with coins easier
However, nickels only result in an annual loss of about $17.7m/year right now, so economically it would still be a net-loss, dollar-value wise.
Now will they have pressed nickel machines
Those press machines have used brass blanks for over a decade. Zinc pennies don’t press well.
Hell of a run, boys!
