Retrospect
Retrospect
The Death Of The Penny | Retrospect Ep.218
In this week’s episode we discussed why the penny became more expensive to make than it’s worth, how its disappearance could affect everyday transactions, and what this shift reveals about our evolving relationship with cash. From rounding rules to digital-payment dominance, we break down the economic, cultural, and practical ripple effects of saying goodbye to the one-cent coin.
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Keywords
Penny discontinuation, US Mint, production costs, taxpayer savings, cultural impact, rounding rules, cash usage, digital payments, coin collecting, inflation, environmental impact, charitable donations, transaction efficiency, historical significance, economic implications.
Jason
Have you ever held something in your hand that felt strangely timeless, a tiny piece of metal worn to a dull copper sheen, stamped with a face you've seen 1000 times but never really looked at Abraham Lincoln staring off to the right as if he sees something we don't now imagine that tomorrow, you wake up and that little coin, that everyday relic of American life, is gone for more than 160 years. The Penny has jingled in our pockets, accumulated in glove compartments, and let's be honest, cause more than a few of us to walk past a take a penny, leave a penny tray without ever taking or leaving anything at all. But behind its familiar face is a modern reality that it's much harder to ignore. Today, it costs the US Mint nearly three cents to make one cent coin, and last year alone, producing pennies cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, money spent on currency that most Americans say they hardly even use. So why do we still have the penny? Why has such a financially inefficient, obsolete coin survived long past its prime? And more importantly, what finally pushed lawmakers, economists and everyday shoppers to consider saying goodbye? Today, we're going to explore that shift, the real studies behind a decision, the arguments about rounding, the equity concerns and the cultural debate over what a coin represents long after its economic purpose fades. We'll look at what this means for consumers, for the Treasury, and the future of cash in America. If the Penny has taught us anything, maybe it's this, even something tiny can carry a story a century and a half of it, millions of hands, millions of pockets, millions of days where this coin, this little copper token, quietly did its job one cent at a time. You welcome to
Ian
the retrospect podcast, a show where people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generation's perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Stoney, hello and Jason, hello everyone. How's it going?
Jason
Well, I'm doing better now. Have a cup of coffee. Got a little caffeine in me and kind of pick me up. You know, I love it. Look little coffee when it starts getting a little cool outside, looking at the long term forecast, it looks like we got a little cold front coming through next week. And one thing
Ian
I haven't had this year yet. It's a nice gumbo. And I know this is the season where people
Jason
usually I'm gonna be getting what I'm gonna be getting with Stoney here in another week or so, we're gonna be, we're gonna be putting the the masterpiece together.
Stoney
Yeah. See, that kind of irritates me about people. Somebody says it's too hot for gumbo. No, just cut them off. You don't need friends like that. You can
Ian
have gumbo whenever. But this is usually the time like that. There's usually the time when everyone dusts off their recipes and usually quietly not call them back. They're not invited to the potluck.
Jason
Well, you know, there are some dishes that I call kind of stick to your gut dishes. Yeah, Gumbo is one of those, and, well,
Stoney
it warms you up from the inside Exactly. Actually, most people believe that lava is one of the hottest liquids on the planet. That's not true.
Ian
It's second to root. The root
Jason
is the hottest. Burn yourself quick.
Ian
Oh yeah, I've gotten a little too I've got I've been a little too hungry and a little too antsy, and I have definitely went to pour myself a big old bowl of gumbo one time, and I was like, this is the hottest thing. I'm talking about the real I know you're right. It's hot. I'm talking about the gumbo after you can
Stoney
burn all the way through you.
Jason
Yeah, crazy, because you heat it up slowly. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's what gets you, yep. And I think last year, when I went to stoney's house and we did the gumbo for Christmas, I think I got a little bit on me and it burned me. No, yeah, okay, so I'm sure I'll get burned. I'm sure I'll get burned again.
Stoney
You know, I wonder. You know, I don't think battle scars, yeah, they don't. I was fixing to say I don't think they cook gumbo in nudist colonies.
Jason
No, yeah, that'd be bad. Ordeal there.
Ian
That's wild. Well, that would be bad, yeah, I had recently heard about the beginnings of what our topic is today about someone had mentioned about how they went to, like, a gas station or something, and they didn't have any pennies available. And they were just like, Yeah, we don't have any pennies. So just sorry.
Stoney
You see, that's what bugs me. There's 300 billion pennies in circular. Legislation, yes. Okay, there's the law. They're still, you're still legal currency, yeah, yeah, we're just not gonna make any more,
Jason
right? So, as it, as it so that's
Stoney
just kind of, there's 300 billion pennies, right?
Jason
It's not like they're confiscating, right, like they're recalling them from the federal, the banks and stuff like that.
Stoney
So they're still there. They're still usable. They're, you know, whatever there's not gonna make anymore. We got enough of them, you know, people hoarding them. Oh yeah. And I get that, and I understand that, but it's like everybody's freaking out over the penny. And for me, the biggest kick to the whole thing is, what businesses are going to do, yeah, they're going to round up or round down. They're going to round up, right? Because the business is not going to round down, they're going to say they are. But yeah, all okay. Well, if it, if it's up to four cents, we'll round down, and if it's over six cents, then we'll round up. Okay? That was the last time. This is the last month that anything will be 14 cents or 13 cents. Right now, everything is going to be 1617, and 18 cents, because they're not going to round down. What is another opportunity for him to raise the price and make a little bit more money. Right?
Ian
Whenever I was in Canada, they had, they'd already did something like this, because they had gotten rid of the penny. And if it was one or two cents, it would round down. Or if it was six or seven cents, it would round down to the nearest five. And if it was three or four, it rounds up to the nearest five. Or if it's eight or nine, it rounds up. So it's like, you kind of had the kind of, I don't say best of both worlds, but it would, it would always round up or down to the nearest fire.
Jason
I wish everything would just round up to the nearest dollar. I don't like any of that. I kind of like stores that do what they call the roundup well, and they take that difference, and they and it's donated to a charity or something like that. That way, if it's 2163 or whatever it is, $22 yeah, you know, and that balance, they donate to charities and stuff like that. I just think that would make a whole lot.
Stoney
There's some interesting app out there that kind of does that, but it puts that extra part in your savings account. Interesting. So if it's 2145 Yeah, it pay you pay that, but to round it up to the next dollar, to keep everything 00, right, it takes whatever that was and puts it into a set your savings account, just so every day you're saving something.
Jason
Wow. Well, I was watching a little news video on on this topic, and they say, at least in this one, the numbers may vary, but I saw something to the effect of the unit. It's gonna save taxpayers about 56 million a year, and that's just base, plus all the additional stuff that goes along with it.
Stoney
So copper is not cheap Number No, no. I don't even think we use real copper anymore. I think it's zinc and something else. It's not even a real copper coin.
Jason
Yeah, yeah. 1982 that got changed. Copper is right now, I think at four and a half cents per pound. I think I saw the latest what copper is going for right now. And I'm a coin collector, just FYI, I'm a coin collector, so I'm always interested in looking at money and stuff like that old coins and, yeah, US money is what I've collected for over the, you know, over the years. But anything prior to 82 is good. Oh, yeah, those pennies actually are worth more than a penny, just simply because of what? Because it
Ian
says that, at least from what I was saying, it's mostly zinc with a thin copper plating. It says it is 99.2% zinc, and then point Yep, point 8% copper, pure, like thin
Jason
coating on the outside. Prior to 82 it was 95% of the penny was copper, right? And during the that was, you know, the Reagan years, when it came in. You know, what are the politics at that time? But, right, they made a change, and basically, after that point, it, in essence, it's it cost the government to make something that wasn't worth what you're actually making. So, so, yeah, so if you got pennies that are prior to 82
Stoney
Yeah, well, they're still printing dollar bills that aren't worth.
Jason
What? Yeah, that's true. You know,
Stoney
this happened on February 9 in 2025 Donald Trump. President Donald Trump, announced that he had ordered the Treasury to stop producing to save money and the big scheme of things, I don't know that $50 million Is, you know, a whole lot of savings, but it's interesting.
Jason
Well, it's, as I said, I think that was strictly just protection cost. I don't think that doesn't include the labor, right, and everything that goes along with it. So with that 56 million, it's, it's probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars, of which you're, in essence, your total cost that goes into making a thing that's not worth. What it it costs to make. So, yeah, I mean, I think that you know that 56 million I read was A or I heard, I checked on the news report it was, you know, probably one component of the overall production of when they make pennies. But, yeah, I don't know it's a, this is a, you know, what a change. Yeah, I knew this was coming. Yeah, I think I knew this was coming. I mean, look, there's, I mean, it wasn't, there's probably, there's probably a lot of coins that I think
Ian
someone said I heard recently, again, of the videos, I'd be very curious what a nickel that was, what they were saying. They're saying the nickels gonna be next. And I was like, maybe. But what I
Stoney
didn't know about all this was the Treasury Secretary already has the authority to decide how many coins are necessary in commerce. You know, he can already make that decision. That's a law that the Treasury Secretary already has that authority. So I just think that Donald and President Donald Trump, getting in and being active trying to save money is interesting, but like you said, they've been talking about this for a long time. Oh yeah, so,
Ian
but it's curious to see, like you said, what I just been I think the whole kind of, the big part of why I kind of want to talk about this was also like, what does this mean for, like, physical currencies moving forward, all together, like a lot of us already have, like, Oh, I think it's a cartel
Stoney
sign, yeah, they're gonna get rid of that. Because even, like, the check, yeah, Y'all said the nickel. I think the check is next interesting, because a lot of stores don't even accept checks anymore. No, and it's really in I'm one of them older people that's really the older generations that still want to write checks. Yeah, but I think the checks going to be next interesting, because now they're charging you, now they're saying just a labor to cash a check is just ridiculous, interesting. So I think that'll be next, because now it's, you know, it's your debit card and your credit card, right? And so how long you know, and when we get the sign of the devil, you know, are we even going to need coins and paper?
Jason
As I said, we don't really know. I have my my I kind of have my idea of how this idea of a mark, and you know how that would work. But I think it's going to come about in a way that you're not going to think about it in that way at all. It'll be introduced in a way, and then also, next minute, you wake up and boom, it's, you're already deep in it. I mean, that's,
Stoney
that's why, you know we're saying this, because that's, that's how you're going to get paid. You're going to walk up and you put your hand out, and your employer is going to zap it, and it's going to put the money on it, and you're going to go to the store and zap it and take it away. That's the I think that's
Ian
to kind of back what you just said about like, it being like a slow process. I think it's already kind of been happening with a lot of the like, again, having your debit card, be like your your banking app, be on your phone. And of course, you know, over the years, having the ability to do NFC, so you can tap your card on the machine, but now, if you have it on your phone, you can just tap your phone on to the ATM pad. Again. I don't there's a specific credit card that I have that I don't keep on me physically, but I have it on my phone and I have NSC turned off, but whenever I want to use it for something, I can turn it on. I can unlock the card from the app and just tap my phone. And then, of course, I can pay for it, lock the card back, turn it off, and like I'm, you see,
Stoney
I think that's exactly why, right? We're not going to notice that, right? Because this is convenient. Yeah, okay. Hey, look, try this app. Try this. Put this on your phone. Look how. Now you don't have to carry a car, right? You don't have to write a check, yeah, just put your phone on it. Well, now you don't even need your phone, right? Hey, look, we're going to put this little implant in your hand, and look how easy. Get on the bus, or you get on a plane, or you do this. All you got to do is,
Ian
yes, but that's, that's what I what I was saying is, I'm trying to reinforce what Jason just said, but the fact is, like, we're going to wake up one day and things are going to be different, and, like, it's going to be a slow process. What I'm saying is, there was a point in time when I first opened up my checking account, like, all I had was a debit card, and it had to be like a physical and I had a checkbook, and I actually used the checkbook on occasion. But. But now here we are. I think, I think checks are fixing them well, I hear what I'm saying is, like, it's for me, even for me. In my own life, it's been a slow process to where, like, I didn't think about this until the other day when I was like, I'm gonna making a big purchase, and I want it on this credit card, and I don't have it with me, but I know that I can use it and keep it secured. And it was just these, like, and it's again, and I also have a Cash App or Venmo or whatever it's like to easily send money to my friends, because I have friends that like, could you go take me to the airport? I'll Venmo. You some money for gas. We're all going to come over and hang out. You buy pizzas. We'll all chip in and Venmo or cash app, you or whatever. It's like, those kind of things where it's like, it's been this slow process where, like, these little conveniences, these little things, have been opening up that have made it easier to not have physical cash. And so even my own life was, I'm saying I'm like, I'm waking up now thinking about this topic, being like, even in my own life, I've, like, made it easier. And things have kind of creeped into where I'm like, I don't need to carry cash for anything, because I'm like, you know? So it's just a proof right there in my own life, just
Stoney
for the record, November 12 of 2025 the US Mint strikes the final circulating Penny. Wow, production for circulation officially ends after more than 230 years. Wow, done. Yeah, crazy. So November is when they stopped it. They stopped interest. November 12 this year. That's wild. And like I said, they remain legal tender. Of course, they're just not going to make it.
Ian
It's just like the $2 bill. You can still pay for things with a $2 bill. But most people don't know what that is. They're like, this is, I collect same. Actually have a little stash of $2 bills. But yeah,
Jason
it's, you know how the $2 bill came about, right? No, the origins of that? No, what happened? It was created because that's what people used to place bets on horses. What it's how it came about. It was a betting. It was a betting. It was a betting currency, currency, and that's why was used. Interesting, yeah. Otherwise, what's the point of making a $2 bill from a kind of just practical day to day? There would have had to been some motivating factor to create a $2 and I read it was a deal with raising and betting and stuff like that. Yeah, right. Here it says, According to us, mints 2024 annual report. It cost 3.69 cents to create a three
Ian
over three and a half. That's correct.
Jason
As a result, the Treasury incurred a senior Ridge, if I'm pronouncing that right, a loss of 85 point 3 million. That's 2024, right?
Ian
Crazy. That's almost four cents for one. So you're like, you're, you're, literally, you're, it's almost like me, it's almost like, almost spending $1 to make a quarter. That's crazy.
Jason
Yeah, they say, they say, the impact here, this is with the removal the penny, cash transactions will likely be rounded to the nearest nickel. A common rounding rule is as follows, if the final digit of a purchase ends at a 348, or nine cents, the total will be rounded up. If it ends in 126, or seven, it will be rounded down. Transactions ending in zero or five cents are not rounded right.
Stoney
So, so you know what the price is going to be. It's going to be three or four or eight or nine, right? Every actually in 2024 they cranked out 3.2 billion pennies. That's a lot of pennies. Wow. Just in 2024
Ian
that's crazy. And think again, 3 million pennies? Yeah, I'm looking at a times 3.69 is how
Stoney
someone was heard saying, we're spending 10s of millions a year manufacturing a coin that people mostly dump into a joy jar and never spend. Yep, I agree.
Ian
That's me. I'm the same way. Yeah, just put it in anytime I ever would wrap coins, which I would do on occasion when I worked at like a coffee shop, and I used to get tips a lot. I would always roll, if I would always try my best to roll the nickels, dimes and quarters, or I would always, I'd prioritize the quarters and then go down. But once I got to the pennies, I'm like, Nah, I'm not gonna sit here and count out 50 pennies to roll. Because I'm like, It's 50 cents. Okay, always just went to that little Yeah, he had the coin star. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I would maybe do that for my pennies, but not for my I would because, because a lot of times, if you for me, I would walk into my bank with my roles. So a lot of times I was like, I'm gonna get my I'm gonna get my money's worth out of these quarters. At the very least,
Jason
they said here I'm looking at a Federal Reserve sponsored service. A that tracks real payments from a national representative sample of consumers. They say Participants were randomly assigned a three day period between September 29 and november two of 2023 during which they recorded every transaction. So this included 24,728 transactions reported by 4671 adults of these 3559 transactions were paid in cash. Among the cash transactions, 2436 ended in whole dollars and would not be affected by the rounding. Okay, so they say, so about 35% of the transactions ending in 050, or five cents, so they wouldn't be affected. You know, that's not going to bother them. So 30, okay, yeah, yeah, it's, uh, some of this stuff is just, you know, as I said, I mean, I don't really use pennies. I mean, I put them in a jar, in a big container at home, which I got a lot of them. I actually need to now go through them and see which ones are pre 1982 and get rid of the, yeah, you're right fish to the good ones that are older than 1982 because those are the ones that are actually, yeah,
Ian
worth something. And I wonder how much more they probably be worth now maybe,
Jason
well, I would think it's time goes on and as things kind of sort out. I mean, I mean, just mean, pennies are going to get lost. They want to drop them, and a lot of people gonna be kind of hoarding them, I imagine now, but they've been hoarding them. To me, the only ones you need to hoard are the ones that are pre 1982 of course, the ones you know, the ones you could that'll that don't do anything. They're not worth anything
Stoney
in the 19th and 20, early 20th century, Penny's actually bought something. They weren't just there as they actually bought something. In the 1800s you could buy a newspaper, a piece of candy, or part actually of a day's wage calculation. You know, in the night, early 1900s streetcar fares, small retail goods were priced with real sensitivity to the penny. Yeah, so, you know, 100 years later, now, Penny doesn't buy anything. Now $1 doesn't buy anything. You can't even go buy a candy bar for less than $2 now maybe a buck 87 right?
Ian
I remember old advertisements for like, you could buy a soda, a coke or whatever, for five cents, for a nickel. Now you will spend 234, dollars, maybe, depending on where you get it from, for probably something that is the same amount.
Stoney
Yeah, it wasn't a rounding error. It was purchasing power. It meant something singly, it was probably the most important coin in American history, total American history, right? So, because that was the first coin that they meant it, right? Was it 7417 74 or 75 I think the Coinage Act came out. And when that happened, that's when the first the first coin was depending
Ian
1793, oh, I'm sorry. Or I think maybe a couple years earlier, it was like Congress had passed it. But I think by 93 was when the US Mint. Okay, where copper cents were made?
Jason
Yeah, they say. Australia discontinued its one cent and two cent coins in 1992 New Zealand eliminated its one cent and two cent coins in 1990 and its five cent coin in 2006 wow and Canada sees Penny production in 2012 Yep,
Ian
again, when I lived there, it was between, like, 17 to 19, I think. And I'm not gonna lie, it was actually kind of nice to carry around change a lot of times, because I knew I could, I could pay for anything with there's a handful of coins well, but even they had, like we had, they had $1 coins and $2 coins, which was other was interesting, but we
Stoney
had to carry a nickel or a dime from a phone. Yep, yeah, because we didn't have cell phones back in my time, we use smoke signals.
Ian
Or was it a carrier pigeon?
Stoney
Carrier pigeon? Yeah, you went, you always had a nickel or dime, then it was quarter. You know, they don't have them anymore.
Ian
No, no, definitely not. I
Jason
say I'm looking here. It says when the with the penny being retired, attention may soon turn to the nickel. Ironically, eliminating the penny could increase demand for nickels, which are even more costly to produce. I didn't think about that in 2024 it cost. Lost 13.8 cents to mint a nickel. 13 cents, 13.8 almost 14 cents. That's crazy. That's over $1 more than double its face value.
Ian
That's almost three times the amount. That's insane.
Jason
Yeah, says it's resulting in a in a synergy loss of $1.75 for every $1 issued in nickels.
Ian
That is wild. You're right. They're gonna definitely get rid of that, because there's no way that's almost worse than the penny is,
Jason
yeah, lost seven point 17 point 7 million last year for minting 202 million new nickels,
Stoney
not even close to the penny thing. No, wow,
Jason
yeah, yeah. They said, however, the losses of the previous two years, 78 million in 2022 and 92 point 6 million in 2023 were much higher. Do the larger production? You're right, supply, because they got to make more. Which it them making that there. It's a losing proposition. No matter what they do, it's just the materials to make something that's only worth you know, right? I don't, I don't know how you're going to, I don't know how you're going to get out of that. I'll be honest with you, I think you have to probably get rid of, I think you're probably gonna get rid of nickel too,
Stoney
and then the dime, yeah, but
Jason
the dime is 10. I very the dime is small.
Ian
Oh, yeah, yeah. Or what if? What if something shifts? What if the nickel changes shape and like becomes like a, you know, mean, change of tradition, like the nickels, like a smaller coin.
Jason
I like the old buffalo nickels, okay, yeah, I have a, I've got, I got some of those. Those are always neat to find that in the mercury pennies. Those are pretty good.
Stoney
Yeah, they even made steel pennies for a little while. Yeah, in the war.
Ian
Yeah, they did. I forgot about the buffalo nickel. Look at that. I remember having a handful of these.
Stoney
I just think the penny is is part of our culture. I mean, right? Think about how ingrained it is in us. You know, a penny saved is a penny earned, or my two cents worth. Let me give you my two cents worth today, yeah, or penny pincher, yep. You know. Y'all may not remember this, but back in my time, there were Penny drives, pennies for patients and school fundraisers and things like that, and and then one of the old the old advertisement psychology games that they used to play because, oh my god, it's $10 but advertise it for 999, at least it's not $10 Yep, you take that one penny off of it. It's just ingrained, you know. And it's just a game, you know, that last cent actually matters, but, you know, it doesn't, but it's just the Penny's been so much part of our culture for 230, years. Yeah, I agree. Now it's gonna be gone.
Ian
Yes, there's gonna be a whole new generation of people who are like, what's a
Stoney
what's a penny? Yeah, they said
Jason
cash usage in the United States has been declining for years. Estimates indicate that only about 16% of transactions involve physical cash today. That's wild, they said. But cash usage isn't evenly distributed. Low income households and the unbanked people without access to bank accounts or digital payment methods depend more on cash, which makes sense? Yeah, they say that's why some economists argue that even small rounding effects might disproportionately affect the most vulnerable consumers.
Ian
Interesting, I didn't think about that either, yeah, wow. I'm really curious to see, like, again, like, we had just to kind of round back around a little bit, like, what that means, like, like, what does the the demand for, especially in like, you're saying, communities like that, where people actually use cash, probably more
Stoney
well, that's, that's my point. What is you're not going to see them round down. No, they're going to make everything work to where it goes up. Because, of course, in all of the millions and millions of transactions every day, five cents, two cents, three cents, it adds up, yeah. It completely adds up, yeah. And it
Jason
says supporters of keeping the penny, including some advocacy groups, also argue that the Penny has cultural and transactional value. They point out that coins like the penny can circulate for decades, giving them utility that offsets upfront production costs. Yeah, as I said, Everybody's the Penny's just been around, so it's hard to just give. It up. Yeah, it's like a changing of the guard.
Stoney
It's been part of us for 230 years. It's like you're stopping something that's ingrained in the American society, right?
Ian
Everybody who's alive in America has been around as long as a penny is so, yeah, we've all, we've all experienced a penny.
Jason
There's still a lot of debate on whether you know how this is going to work out. Because, just like Stoney said, they're going to round up, nobody's going to round down. I mean, they just give them another reason to raise the price. Yeah, they're not going to, they're not going to change that. So, I mean, you know, if there's a way to some plausible excuse to raise prices. They're going to do it, right, you know?
Stoney
And look, let's not just raise it to the five cents. Let's just go ahead and raise it to the 10 cents, or, like Jason said, just round it up to the dollar, and that's what they're
Jason
going to do, right? Yeah, be honest with you, outside of a quarter, yeah, I just don't really see the point of coinage. I don't even see a reason for dime anymore, really. Yeah, quarter, you know, you'd be a quarter in dollars, and then that, that would be your only coin would be, you know, would be that.
Stoney
And for me, this goes way deeper than this. I think this is just, it's the it's the ultra elite demanding that we be controllable. Because what is this? This is a war on cash. Think about how long the war on cash has been going, and they want you controlled. Okay? Now credit card companies are reporting you when you buy a weapon. Yeah, really. Okay. How far is this going to go? Because this is really, this is one more way to nudge people into a cashless society. Yep, and it's all is that's nothing about control. They're nudging you toward digital payments.
Jason
Oh, there's no doubt that's exactly where they want to go. I mean, they talked about doing a central a central digital currency. I mean, I just think inevitably it's coming. Now, am I for that? No, because I that you open the book, that they can, in essence, control what you buy. They can, can turn that spigot off when they want. It does take a power. I mean, that's why the Bitcoin people are against the central digital currency, because it takes away from, you know, them having value and wealth in a kind of an unregulated sense, yeah, but at the same time, it's like anything, it's good and bad. I mean, what a, what a centralized digital currency does. It basically cuts out the smuggling, the
Stoney
embezzling, all those it really, no, it doesn't. Well, it would to
Jason
a degree, because then I can't deal in anything. I mean, look where there's a will, there's a way. Of course, it doesn't matter what system, right?
Stoney
Because when they made drugs illegal, look what it did to the drug industry. Yeah, you're right.
Jason
That's still a physical object.
Stoney
Everything's still a physical object. If you want to buy this from me,
Jason
but it at the same time for me, for me to do that, just say, in theoretically, if we're in a in a cashless society, for me to be able to, basically, if I'm in a, you know, underground setting, I'm trying to operate circumvent the law.
Ian
You have, like, it's all cyber warfare. It's cyber warfare.
Jason
Now you're introducing a whole different set of issues. That, instead of the battle taking place in the physical, it's now taking place in the digital. You know, I'm kind of almost getting a little Tron vibes here.
Stoney
It's gonna create two systems. Yeah, it's going to create the electrical, governmental, you know, control system, and then you're going to have an underground system of, still real money caps. What's, what's the game? Fall out, all out with bottle caps. Yeah, there's still going to be a currency going around for underground stuff, because not everybody is going to be able to participate in, oh, yeah, this digital system, right? And what they're doing is they're creating a path, right?
Ian
The, I guess the attempts on counterfeiting may go down, but the the attempts on, like, digital, I don't know how you would say that, like the pirating of people's identities, of like their debit cards and credit cards, all that kind of
Stoney
stuff may go up. That's gonna go up. What was the movie when time was the currency?
Jason
Oh yeah, that was the actor. That was the guy. I. Britney Spears, does his fellow entertainer. What's that guy's name? But he started,
Stoney
Justin Timberlake, yeah, he was in it, yeah, started. It's actually a really good, very good movie. I can't remember the name. You're out of time. You're out of time.
Ian
Time is, time is or in time.
Jason
Another good movie.
Stoney
Check out. But if you think about it, what were they doing? They were robbing people of their time. Yeah, okay, because there's always a way to take some always, never, yeah, I agree. It's kind of like the old thing. I'll turn my guns in when you can tell me how you're gonna get the guns from criminals. Until then, I'm keeping mine. Well, I'm not going to go to this cashless system until you can guarantee me I'm not going to be controlled by it and somebody can't get well Street and take it.
Jason
The thing is, though they could make things very I'm not saying things would not develop, but the reality is, if they basically said, okay, all physical money is now worthless, right? Okay. It can't be used to buy anything. It has no value, nothing, okay, any sort of criminal element at that point now is okay. We're in the digital adjust our focus. We got to adjust our focus, and because, you know, payments gonna be phone to phone, you know, and not saying, that's what I'm saying, you I'm not saying you can't strong arm people and doing those kind of things. But what digital it, what it does, it makes it far easier to track. Oh, yeah, that's the key. It's not that it can't. It is not a there won't be elements to try to to circumvent that, right? But they're still having a circumvent it via electronics, which always then leaves a signature. Yeah, it just does right now, as AI gets more and more advanced and how all
Ian
that, and there's always, there's always a dark underbelly stuff where people get there's always a way around certain things, and there's always some probably crazy, intelligent person that's on the cutting edge that's, of course, already doing that. Now, you know,
Jason
I mean, you that's where you get the argument with with the coin digital stuff, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, that's what that is. I mean, cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency, you know, I don't have no idea what they're basing the value of that on, but I have no idea how to even I don't get it or, yeah, I don't, I really don't understand that they I know there's a lot of people have made a lot of money off of it, but right at the end of the day, I don't know if I trust I would want to invest in, give my into something that has no value. I don't know. I mean, it's computer language for all intents and purposes. But just a little bit of history, the US Congress established the US Mint in Philadelphia with the Coinage Act of 1792 in March, 1 of that year, I mean of the next year, the mint produced the country's first circulating coins, 11,178 copper cents, or the penny, yeah, it says, According to the US Mint, the new coins caused a bit of a public outcry. They were larger than a modern quarter, a bulky size for small change, the image of liberty on the obverse the head side showed her hair streaming behind her and her expression in a fright, whoa. The Reverse the tail side featured a chain of 15 links similar to the Fujio scent, and that's F, U, G, i, o, yeah. However, some people felt that it symbolized slavery instead of unity of the states, the mint quickly replaced the chain with a wreath, and a couple months later, designed a new version of liberty.
Ian
I'm looking at it right here, and I do see what they're talking about. That's interesting.
Jason
They said an image of President Abraham Lincoln replaced liberty on the obverse of the penny in 1909 making the 16th president the first chief executive to Grace an American coin.
Ian
Wow, so he was the first one. He was the first wow, that's interesting.
Jason
Yeah, they said in 1857 Congress facing rising copper prices made the penny smaller and stopped minting the half cent.
Ian
Oh, I forgot there was a hat. See. This is something talking about, I think that I wouldn't be surprised if in the in the not so distant future, the nickel takes a different shape, or for reasons like this. Go ahead.
Jason
Sorry, they said the. Latter being unpopular with Americans, the discontinuation of the has sent makes the penny the only American coin to have been continuously minute and circulated since the creation of the US Mint.
Ian
Wow. What a sad day that it's and that it's over. Now that's wild. I didn't know that. Yeah, dang.
Jason
So the US Mint produces coins, as instructed by the US Congress. So for pennies to be removed from circulation, a law would have to be passed, I don't think they're going to do that and signed by the President, though the Treasury could simply stop minting the coins, which is what I think has happened here, because I don't recall any actual there's no action to discontinue the penny.
Stoney
The executive president said we're not gonna make any more.
Ian
Okay? So, so this is just
Jason
like an executive decision, right? It's not nothing. Congress has authorized the discontinuation of the US got it now, if they did that, then the penny would be pull from all the banks, and it would be, I
Ian
see what you're saying, dealt it down. So that means, like, if in future they wanted to, they could produce more pennies, correct? Sure. Okay, absolutely right. Not that they
Stoney
would, but Penny's not dead, right? Since we're not gonna make any of that either, that's interesting.
Jason
Okay, they say several unsuccessful legislative efforts have been have sought to kill the penny in 2017 for example, Senators John McCain and Mike Enzi sponsored the, well, I lost my, I lost my, my stuff I was reading. So I'll get back
Ian
to it easy, though. Okay, so that's interesting that now I see what we're
Stoney
Yeah, it's just, you know, he called the guy and said, hey, you know what? Yes, don't make anymore, which he already had the authority not to make any more because he deems what's necessary to have out there, right, right, right? And with, with the cash system coming down a good bit, with credit cards and debit cards and everything else, right?
Jason
There's no sense in it. Okay, I got it back. He said, Let me finish those says these two senators, John McCain and Mike Enzi sponsored the currency optimization innovation and National Savings Act, which ultimately failed but would have suspended minting of the penny for 10 years, while the Government Accountability Office studied whether the change would be made permanent. Interesting.
Ian
Now, yeah, yeah. Is there any kind of timeframe on the current suspension? I think
Jason
it's just probably gonna be that way until there's a new treasury secretary and whether they want to start producing it again. But yeah, we'll see who really needs the federal government doesn't mind spending money or losing money. So it's really, it's no financial incentive, and unless somebody just just kind of wants to save money for the taxpayer, right? You know? But, yeah,
Ian
that's wild. How interesting. Yeah, I do. I do. I am curious. Like, like, I've said it a couple times so far. I wonder what kind of shift would happen if this was to take place, what kind of new stuff would they do or try? Because, yeah, if it's taken if it's costing freaking what was it for? The 3.60 yeah, nickels, it was That's wild, almost 15 cents for a nickels.
Jason
Yeah, I think that some of the pros of keeping the penny around, at least according to wood I'm kind of been reading it's it's preserving the penny keeps consumer prices down,
Ian
which it seems like we're probably not believing around here in these parts, no, but just depends.
Jason
It's a penny can be used for decades and is more cost efficient to produce than a nickel, which makes sense. Theoretically, you can get rid of the nickel and just keep the penny. Think about that. Maybe you know, if it's cost nearly double, right? It's even more expensive to produce nickel. So I just
Ian
wonder if there's a way that they could, like, you know, I know people would probably hate this as well. But like, is there a way you could, like, manufacture a nickel that is either smaller or has a different material in it that could potentially be closer to five cents, but I guess not or what it what it is ridiculous. But what if, like, what if the, what if the nickel, our nickel, takes the shape of, like, the the three cent Penny, because it takes what it takes four cents to make a penny. Why don't we just slap a five cent mark on it and just call it the or whatever? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know
Jason
some of the some of these groups that, and they make a point, some of these groups that raise money, like organizations such as leukemia, lymphoma society, Salvation Army and the Ronald McDonald House, house people to donate pennies, yeah, to raise funds, yeah.
Stoney
So that said that earlier. That's part of the draw of the penny.
Jason
Yeah, was it? They said in 2009 the Leukemia Lymphoma Society announced that school children had collected over 15 billion pennies cool in support
Ian
of its charitable work. That's a lot of pennies. That's $150
Jason
million for blood cancer research and treatment.
Ian
That's amazing. Yeah, yes, I'd hate to have to roll those pennies.
Jason
Dagmar sorota, who created a nonprofit called good sense for Oakland, said pennies are easy to ask for and they're easy to give,
Ian
which is true, very true, yeah, because people don't want to use them.
Jason
And it's very easy for a child to say, will you help me support this nonprofit? Will you give me your pennies? And what do you do? Yeah, absolutely you
Ian
do, because I'm not using them better, better to go to a good cause than to sit here and collect dust.
Jason
Yeah, as at elementary school, students in Los Angeles gained significant Leadership and Civic Engagement experience from the University of Southern California's Penny harvest program by choosing how to donate the money they raise. I remember,
Ian
when I was growing up, we used to have one of those. I don't know if this is something that people know of. There's a like, Kentwood, like, water jug, like, there's like, those big, like, you know, the traditional, like, let's go, like, talk by the water fountain. And it's like the big jugs that you like, put on top of, like a little water spigot fountain thing. We used to have one of those, like, big water jugs in, like our in, like, the little, like home office area that we had, and we used to always put coins in there. And there was a point in time where we had, like, we had that thing, like, I mean, very full of coins. And I'll never forget one day I think it had just gotten old or got too heavy, we tried to move it, and it actually cracked coins when spilling out, and that was a pain to clean up. I'll never forget that. It was a fun but you talk about it was a lot of pennies in there. That was, it was a lot of coins in general.
Stoney
But well, you know, it was a penny that started the Baton Rouge zoo, right? That's right, really a penny, yeah? Buskin, Bill Black, in the early 60s, started a campaign. Said Baton Rouge needs a zoo. And ask kids and families to turn in pennies to get to get the money for the zoo. Yeah. I mean, do you think they collected? I mean, I know this is that. Remember, this is the early 60s.
Ian
I know that there is a zoo over in Baton Rouge, so I'm assuming enough to make it happen, over 600,000
Stoney
pennies in that fundraising drive.
Jason
That's insane. That's that's unbelievable, but I just shows you kind of, you know, just it's easy to get people to donate pennies. I see here, says comedian John Oliver, noted 2% of Americans admitted to regularly throwing pennies in the garbage. Whoa, which means the US Mint is spending millions to make garbage. He says two thirds of the billions of pennies produced are never seen in circulation again once they reach consumer via the bank. Wow.
Stoney
I did want to throw something else out there before I was interrupted. But there were so many pennies, okay, collected that they were not only able to start the zoo, but by two elephants, and they named them Penny and Penny too.
Ian
Okay, yep, what was, what year you did? You said that was in the 60s, 60s. Okay, let's, I'm curious.
Stoney
Just do buff skin Bill Black Baton Rouge needs a zoo, and it'll pop up. Oh yeah.
Ian
I was trying to find out was, is that 600,000 pennies is $6,000 in today's money? So I was trying to see what the conversion would be, and it says that, with inflation, all that kind of stuff, that would be $65,000 or almost 65 and a half $1,000 in today's money. So that's crazy to think that you got that's a lot. That's crazy, though,
Jason
over the last 35 years, I'm just kind of reading some of the cons of you know some reason to get rid of the pennies over the last 35 years, 107 million pounds of carbon dioxide have emitted due to pennies being delivered from the mint to banks. A California company called Mike's bikes have banned the penny from its registers because making pennies waste Natural Resources is toxic to people in the environment. So there. Always the actually,
Stoney
copper is not toxic. Copper jugs and cups are naturally antibacterial. Yep, that's right, they are.
Jason
So I think it's the process of pulling it out of the ground, and at least that's kind of what I'm getting at, probably the, you know, delivering from the ground to a penny, and this, whatever that process is, is it?
Ian
I'm looking at this graph this because I pulled up this whole inflation thing. It's like the it's crazy to see the graph like steadily rise throughout time, and there's just this large spike after 2020 it goes like this. All of a sudden, it goes, whoop. It goes straight up. That's insane.
Jason
They said the use of pennies in paying for goods and making change adds times, adds time to sales transactions. A study by Walgreens and the National Association of convenience stores found that pennies add two to 2.5 seconds to each cash transaction, wow.
Stoney
Well, that's what they're saying about checks too. When you got a line of people, somebody wants to write a check, you're gonna hold that line up, 456, minutes. Oh, yeah, you know, oh, you got to run it through the thing and check facts and make sure they really got the money. And, I mean, come on, yeah.
Jason
As a result of that extra time per transaction, the average citizen wastes 730 seconds a year, 12 minutes paying with pennies. Harvard University economist Greg manic, why says that this wasted time costs the US economy around 1 billion annually.
Stoney
No way time is mine. I think they're reaching there.
Jason
It says an estimate from the citizens to retire the US Penny says the 100 and 7 billion cash transactions in the United States annually add up to 120 million hours of time between customers and employees at a cost of 2 billion to the US economy.
Ian
When I worked in retail, and people would come up there with just a sack full of pennies, I was like, Why? Why do you hate me? Why don't you go to the bank and you get those that changed out for some for some bigger currencies? Because I have to be the one to count all that to make sure it's, you know, and a lot of times I at that point, we're talking about human error, and I'd be nervous about that, but that's happened to me in the past. I remember being in the workforce right after I got into high school, and I remember when they stopped allowing checks in, like retail work at the place that I was like, starting off working at, they allowed checks for a few transactions. And I remember when it changed over, they were like, Hey, by the way, we're not doing checks anymore. And that was, like, in the 2000 teens, which is crazy to think about. Man, yeah, Pam, he's gone and he's gone.
Jason
Well, look charity frozen. Look charities. Charities have adjusted to increasingly cashless daily lives. An executive with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society told The New York Times that soliciting donations in the form of roundups and add ons to credit card transactions have proved much more lucrative than the coin gatherer never did, of course, conclude at the New York Times a few things symbolize our national dysfunction more than the inability to stop minting his worthless currency.
Ian
And thing is, it's just like the convenience has crept in to have the apps, the touch, all the different things, it also the convenience is in that aspect too. I agree with you that a lot of times, whenever they're at certain like coffee shops or things they have given me, or other like establishments, they've given me the option to round up to tip, which is not much, but, I mean, it's something, and I don't have any cash on me a lot of times, but I'm like, Yeah, sure, I'll round up 50, 3040, cents or whatever, to the nearest dollar on top. Yeah, yeah, especially because I frequent a place, or I, like, the people am I, you know, three, $4 transactions up being closer to $5 I'm like, that's fine. So it's, I would imagine, probably the same sort of thing. It's like they were saying before the donations has been convenient now, as opposed to, like, having to collect coins and having to, like, then donate them. The Easy, the easy roundup button. Make it make it simple.
Jason
Yeah, I don't think this is a is that a big deal? Is, yeah, kind of making it out to be because, as I said, the pennies are still, of course, out there. And I'll be very curious what was, what's going to be interesting is to see going forward as time goes on. When the current secretary, Treasury Secretary, is gone, and a new administration's in, in the White House, whether that would be continued or not, sometimes the hardest part is the first one doing it. Once it's done, it's like, okay, well, you know, it's, yeah,
Ian
while we're here, while we're here, no one. No one wants to be the is just like, whenever it's just like, whenever you're whenever you're like, talking to people, as far as like, like in like, a community aspect, or whenever you're the first person to try something. No one wants to be the first one. But once they once someone takes the bandit off, or once someone breaks the seal, and we can get moving, then everyone's like, Oh yeah, come on. We can all go, yeah. But no one wants to be the
Jason
first one. Nobody wants to know, yeah. That applies to a lot of things. I've noticed that nobody wants to kind of step out
Ian
on the limb. No one wants to be the first one to say anything. But the second someone says, me too, yeah.
Jason
What's it you get the ball rolling, then it's like, oh, well,
Ian
everything is going on. I didn't start this. I'm just continuing how that works, of course, so, but I am. I'm curious to see where this, where this goes, what happens to this?
Jason
And well, I think really, we're fixing to get rid of cash in our society anyway, I think it's inevitable, yeah, I mean, I mean I pay with credit card almost everything I do, yeah, I hardly ever. The only time I have I use cash is for tips, because I like to tip waitresses with cash, right? But for my, you know, I hardly ever use cash anymore, right? Really, don't I am fully on board, right, right, right with because that's my life now, right? Now do I realize that there's, there's consequences and stuff that that can be abused absolutely but my day to day life is pretty much cashless. Yeah, I,
Ian
I recently, throughout the course of November, had a job that was, was a cash job, so I was just, you know, I would get paid after I was done with it. And so I throughout that, throughout the month of November, I've collected, you know, a rather large sum of cash that I just have some of it I did deposit in the bank, but some of it, I was like, I'll just keep it as like, you know, money for dinner, money for coffee or whatever. And I'm, you know. So I've been using it throughout the month of November more than I would have in the past. But it's all been like, five, $5 bills, fives, ones, 10s, you know, or whatever. Because, again, I would like, I would break the bigger denominations into smaller ones, and they would have, you know, money to kind of play around with. But now I'm, you know, anywhere i Any, any chance that I can, whenever I like, if I can tip or round up or whatever, I'll do that anyway. So I'm like, here's, if it's like, you know, yeah, $16 I'll go ahead and give like, 1520 bucks, whatever. And she's
Jason
like, Yeah, you do a standard 20% or do you adjust accordingly? A lot of
Ian
times it's a standard, well, yeah, because I A lot of times, if I'm paying at a restaurant, I can just do it. I do the math on the page, page right there. So a lot of times, if it's like 15 something, I'll just do 20% and,
Stoney
well, we start at 20% and then we adjust for the service, right, right, right? And because we're in a, basically a 10, 10% tax area, right? All you got to do is double the tax, right? And that makes it easy. And then, depending on the service, if the service was better than we expected, we'll bump it up. If it's less than expected, we'll bump it down. But what we don't do is like, if, if the food comes out a little slow and we can see our server working. We don't punish the server. No, no, no for the food. You know, being wrong or late or whatever, right. I agree.
Ian
A lot of times I got like I had said before. I don't really ever usually carry cash a whole lot, so I know that a lot of times waiters and waitresses prefer cash tips, but I usually will never have it on me. But you know, like I said, as of recently, what little times I have been going, I've been paying in cash, but
Stoney
now you don't tax the Yep. So Right? And I think that's not only just the cash I'm talking that comes on for the card too, yeah? Because most of the times you were paying them cash, right, they didn't get taxed on it. Because when you put it on the credit card, this is a tip that would get taxed, right? Well, now they're not. Their law was passed. That's not going to be taxed anymore.
Ian
I hate to be that guy, but like, that was, you know, back whenever, you know, I think before that was an effect, I was like, I don't have any cash. I usually would never carry cash on me. So I'm like, either, either I tip you on the card, or you don't get a tip. Like, and so that's why I'm like, I think you would rather one than the other. I hate to say that, but like I want to be I want to help you out.
Jason
But he said a another study say 58% of people surveyed say they accumulate or save pennies rather than spend them. Yep. So put them in jars, piggy banks. Some people do throw them away, though that's a minority.
Ian
Throwing away is crazy. That's actually like throwing away money you talk
Stoney
about against the law because you don't actually own the money. That's destruction of property.
Jason
You talk about privilege. Yeah, they say a University of Arizona study referenced in a US government report. This is from 1980 to 86 found that households threw away about three pennies per year, on average, a small number, but useful because it's one of the few quantitative, quantified measures of disposal behavior. Interesting, they say, modern public opinion research shows that many Americans don't use pennies at all, and a growing share wouldn't bother picking them up from the ground anymore. One You Gov poll found that 28% of Americans never use pennies to pay for things, and that younger adults are more likely to just leave pennies on the ground if they see them, yeah? A shift from a 2014 survey where more people said they would stop and pick them up.
Ian
Interesting. I wonder, like, what? What denomination would people stop for? A quarter? Oh, yeah, yeah, I would stop for a dime. I think I look at a diamond for a penny.
Jason
Yeah, there's something about him. Of course, the coin collector in me, of course, interested. Is that gonna be one of the ones I'm
Ian
looking Of course it is. I'm just thinking about for myself, I was looking at a coin in the ground. I'd be like, maybe a maybe a nickel, just depends. But if I saw a dime on the ground, or diamond recorder, yeah, I'm definitely stopping to pick it up. That's interesting to think about. What is the what is the old thing? The old like, the stuff about Bill Gates, where he was like, he makes so much money per second that, like he could, he could drop $100 bill. I think this was back in the day when I was, like, in high school. It was like, he could, Bill Gates could drop $100 bill on the ground. And it's not, it's literally not worth his time to turn around and pick it back up because the amount of money he makes in like, oh, well,
Jason
people that are, you know, of course, yeah, it's all relative to what you know, if you, if you're one of these people that just have so much money that it's like, I don't care. I mean, it's more like, you know, just throwing money out the window, so to speak. I mean, it's sort of like how you know what you know, kind of the origins of Mardi Gras and how the rich, rich nobles would throw out, you know, right to kind of keep the masses happy. From, that's interesting. From, yeah, from writing, you know. So it's, you know, I mean, idea of throwing money away. I mean, it's, yeah, there's precedent for it, so it's not on, but yeah, for people, I like that kind of wealth, I mean, yeah, 100 bucks.
Ian
That's, that's what I'm saying. I think, like, the the it came about, because they were saying that, like, in every minute, Bill Gates makes x amount of dollars or whatever. And so it was like, the amount of time it would take for him to stop, turn around, pick it up and then put it back in his pocket. It's like, literally, you made more money in that span of time than you would to just having picked up that money or whatever. And I was thinking about that in perspective of, like, now, in this modern age, like people probably make enough money and they don't care enough about a penny to like, they could literally drop a penny and go, nah, it's not worth it, right? It's not worth the effort anymore, which is crazy to think about. Yeah.
Jason
I mean, look, I mean, there's times I've walked high and even, you know, I've walked by nickels, oh yeah, dimes. I've Yeah, look, sometimes I've walked by $1 Yeah, I really have okay and be honest with you, sometimes it's if it's like, kind of off somewhere, I feel like it's a lot of work to try to get. What about all that? Yeah, but yeah, that's wild. Yeah, I would love you know, I have several to $2 bills, and
Ian
I'll show you my collection after we're done, yeah,
Jason
look up $2 bills. Very interesting. Yeah, history of the $2 bill? I'll read up on that if I recall. It had to do with placing bets. Yeah, why it was eventually came about and, yeah, because otherwise, I mean, what's a $2 bill? I mean, what practicals for a well, I thought the standard bet was $2 $2 bill came about.
Ian
I was curious about, like, I know that it probably meant something back when money actually was worth something, but like, the half cent. Why would you ever want a half cent? But I guess if things. Things are, you know, that's not everything, exactly, right? Well, because I'm thinking from modern things where, like, things barely cost one cent, let alone a half cent. But you're right, yeah. So anyways, I thought that was interesting. Well, if anyone has their opinions about this, or wants to share their thoughts, or, you know, share your memories of the penny and what it has what has meant to you throughout your life, we're interested to hear about it. We got comment sections on Spotify and on YouTube where you can leave your more short form responses. We also have the email address get offended together@gmail.com, where you can, if you want to give us a whole story, you can go ahead and type it all up there and we can read it for you, and until next week, thank you so much for listening. Bye, bye. Goodbye everyone. God bless
Stoney
so that's the story of the American Penny, 230 years of service, and now it's basically retiring to Florida with the rest of our relatives. We'll still see it in couch cushions, junk drawers and around the train rails, when occasionally a kid will hear that his grandpa used to put him on the tracks for the trains to run over, and then that one guy's pocket who swears he's collecting them, but the Mint has moved on. If you're paying cash, expect a little rounding. If you're paying with a card, expect nothing to change, just like always. And remember, A penny saved is now mostly just a souvenir. Thanks for joining us. You're the best. Peace.