US ends penny-making run after more than 230 years
Pennies today cost nearly four cents each to make - more than twice the cost of a decade ago.
The church crowd collectively shitting themselves over what to leave for a tip at brunch
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I assume testfactor means in economic value / purchasing power.
except im wondering how banks are going to handle this given congress did not act.
Probably the same way they handled the halfpenny being removed from circulation. There was no government fiat about it then.
But, luckily, they've got 20yrs minimum to figure it out. They've just stopped making new pennies. Coins are intended to last 20-30 years. It's not like they're going out and stealing everyone's pennies today.
I doubt it's a terribly difficult problem for them to solve over the next two to three decades.
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."
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.
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).
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?
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
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:
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.
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.
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. 🤷♂️
Another thing the president is not supposed to be able to do unilaterally.
Hell of a run, boys!
I can smell that thumbnail. I can smell her good.
cheapest diy nut washers
just use the sink ffs
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.
Now will they have pressed nickel machines
Those press machines have used brass blanks for over a decade. Zinc pennies don't press well.
I thought they got rid of the penny like four years ago
A long time coming