Rebuttal to Americans for Common Cents
This is a rebuttal to points raised by Americans for Common Cents (ACC), which supports their case with some arguments that are both silly and untrue.
The FAQ for ACC talks about how the financial allocation for labor and materials the production of all coins and that getting rid of the penny would cause an increase in the need for nickels, which cost more to produce. First off, currently when you get change and it has pennies, it will be 1-4 pennies, and most of those pennies will end up in a jar, regardless of of whether the change contained any other change (including nickels!). For any purchase that are rounded down, so no new nickels would be needed – it’s just pennies for the jar! The ONLY time new nickel MIGHT be required is when a transaction is rounded up, and in many cases this will require dimes and/or dollars NOT nickels. Statistically the rounding up vs rounding downs will even out over time. So, the idea that we would need NEW nickels just because the penny is no longe around seems ludicrous. Also, WHY since we are becoming very conciouse of recycling and cutting consumption would we continue to subsidize an item that there are literally BILLIONS (if not TRILLIONS) in existance that can be easily put back into the system via your local Coinstar machine.
In fact, the need for all coinage that we currently use could proably met by a small ad campaign nudging people to trade in their change.
Another argument they make is that even though other countries – Canada, New Zealand, Australia eliminated the penny without issues DECADES ago without problem that somehow because the US economy is many times larger, that there will be problems. Say what?! Where is any evidence for this? Are we dumber than other countries? Maybe so, as we still have pennies. What does size of an economy have anything to do with this, other than it means a lot more pennies floating around.
They also claim that most Americans want to keep the penny. Not true, a majority of Americans are in favor of getting rid of the penny.
And finally, they argue that somehow eliminating the penny will increase cash transaction times. Once again, what?!? And where’s the evidence for this. I think most people who run a cash register can easily figure out the correct change to give!
