Number of the Day
America’s Penny Problem, by the Numbers
Amid a national coin shortage, nearly half the U.S. wants the penny gone
45%: That’s the percent of U.S. consumers who would like to see pennies phased out or eliminated, according to a survey conducted by Rapyd, a payments network company. The same survey found that 60% of consumers plan on switching to digital or contactless payments going forward because of Covid-19, and 32% want to see physical currency phased out entirely.
Calls to abolish the penny have been a thing since at least 1990, when legislation to eliminate pennies from cash transactions was first introduced in Congress. Since then, they’ve been echoed in the New York Times, by a former director of the U.S. Mint, and by former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang. There’s a pretty strong argument against the penny: The coins cost nearly twice what they’re worth as currency to produce, and the U.S. Mint lost $72 million on the 7 billion pennies it minted last year.
And yet, the nuisance coins persist, gathering in jars and desk drawers, even as they continue to be churned out by the U.S. Mint. Why? Penny pushers say that pennies are a “loss leader” for the Mint that create demand for more profitable coins, and the zinc lobby is apparently concerned that eliminating the penny (made mostly of zinc) will create a “rounding tax” that hurts consumers.
Color us skeptical. With digital contactless payments seeing a dramatic uptick during the pandemic and a national coin shortage hampering stores’ ability to hand out change for cash payments, there couldn’t be a better time than now to finally end the penny.
Do it for America, Mnuchin: End the penny (and give us the Tubman $20 bill while you’re at it).
