The article mentions that pennies almost never get pulled from circulation because they almost never get spent. New rolls of pennies get distributed, the coins are handed out as change and then… nothing. The vast majority of them never get used after that. Cant pull an old coin from circulation if it never makes its way back to a bank.
Here in the Netherlands, we use the Euro. Which has 1 and 2 cent coins. The Netherlands and a few other Euro countries basically stopped using those, instead rounding off to the nearest 5 cents when paying with physical money.
If you pay digitally, you still pay the exact amount without the rounding off.
Frankly, I was amazed that they thought those 1 and 2 cents were useful. You can buy nothing with them and they cost more to make than their worth.
Interesting. Makes sense.
I’m sure some re-enter from, like, coinstar machines or something, but that’s gotta be a tiny minority.
But that seems like another point in favor of discontinuing them. If people who get them literally never use them, seems like a pointless coin, lol.
But it seems like they’ll probably self eliminate one way or the other over time. I guess the concern would be that they’d self eliminate too quickly, as no one who gets them ever spends them, so basically every distributed penny just instantly vanishes.
But I think the problems with cutting over will largely just be minor heartache. Like, it’ll be minorly bumpy for a month or two, but by a year out everyone will have figured it out and no one will miss them.
The article mentions that pennies almost never get pulled from circulation because they almost never get spent. New rolls of pennies get distributed, the coins are handed out as change and then… nothing. The vast majority of them never get used after that. Cant pull an old coin from circulation if it never makes its way back to a bank.
Can confirm, have a bowl of pennies in my house that never gets used. I don’t even know why at this point.
Here in the Netherlands, we use the Euro. Which has 1 and 2 cent coins. The Netherlands and a few other Euro countries basically stopped using those, instead rounding off to the nearest 5 cents when paying with physical money.
If you pay digitally, you still pay the exact amount without the rounding off.
Frankly, I was amazed that they thought those 1 and 2 cents were useful. You can buy nothing with them and they cost more to make than their worth.
wow, yeah. At least pennies have the excuse of being actually useful when they were first introduced.
Yeah,you can buy a thought with them!
Guess the US populous stopped thinking…
Interesting. Makes sense.
I’m sure some re-enter from, like, coinstar machines or something, but that’s gotta be a tiny minority.
But that seems like another point in favor of discontinuing them. If people who get them literally never use them, seems like a pointless coin, lol.
But it seems like they’ll probably self eliminate one way or the other over time. I guess the concern would be that they’d self eliminate too quickly, as no one who gets them ever spends them, so basically every distributed penny just instantly vanishes.
But I think the problems with cutting over will largely just be minor heartache. Like, it’ll be minorly bumpy for a month or two, but by a year out everyone will have figured it out and no one will miss them.