In a time when our country’s economy isn’t at its best, government officials should be brainstorming ways to get the U.S. out of its rut without jeopardizing other important systems, such as education. Our government should highly consider getting rid of the penny.
The smallest unit of currency currently in circulation is the penny. It costs the country more than one cent to make the penny, thus losing money in producing it. In 2009, it cost 1.6 cents to make a penny and 6.1 cents to make a nickel causing the US Mint to lose $22 million on penny and nickel production.
As a country we could probably fix this problem by using steel instead of zinc to make pennies, but that wouldn’t address the underlying problem. By doing so we would still be giving up a substantial amount of opportunity cost.
Every year American taxpayers pay money just to lose money in productivity cost. There are many studies that show getting rid of the penny wouldn’t bring about any negative consequences. The only institution in the world that benefits from the existence of pennies is a company in Greenville, Tennessee called Jarden Zinc Products. For everyone else, they are useless.
Money exists to make things easier between buyers and sellers and to simplify the give-and-take of goods and services. Pennies don’t exactly do that. Every machine that takes coins, from vending machines to meters, does not accept pennies.
Reducing our coin system to have only a dime, a quarter and a 50-cent piece, would save our government millions of dollars annually. The money we save can be put into other areas that need financial support, such as higher education.
All the statistics available on how useless pennies are might make one wonder, well why haven’t we gotten them rid of them yet? And it’s because of a couple of reasons, one of them being that people like pennies. Society has grown with pennies so they have added some sort of sentimental value to it. Also, it’s not a super hot button political issue so it’s not something a political leader can lead his campaign with, so nobody bothers.
Many people have grown up with pennies and they might have sentimental value but none of that really matters when thousands of people are struggling.
Simply getting rid of a coin that really has no use could make things better.
Rebecca Ruiz is a senior business major and a contributing writer for the Daily 49er.
