In 2008 why the penny is significant?

Answer 1

It's a pretty vague (and slightly strange) question, but I'll assume you mean why do we still need them?

The most obvious use of a single penny is in the oft used 99p, £4.99 and £9.99 price tags.
Most people will round it up in their heads, but will still stand there waiting for their 1p change.

If the penny is discontinued, will retailers round it up to the next pound, or still try to use the psychological ploy of making it look like a pound cheaper by using 98p instead? If you follow that on to it's next logical conclusion and assume the 2p goes too, do we then get 95p shops instead of the glut of pound shops that exist now?

There's already a 99p shop in my neck of the woods and they must use 1p coins by the barrow load, although I suspect some people decline the change as useless thus adding a nice bit of extra profit to the store. 1p might be insignificant to you, but times the hundreds possibly thousands over the course of a day, could go towards paying one of the staffs wages.

I see kids chucking copper coins as worthless trash quite often, but you only need to keep a jar or tin somewhere and then use one of those automatic changer machines you see in a lot of supermarkets to see it's not worthless. I recently cashed in my (mostly) copper coins and got £14 - you wouldn't throw £14 on the floor would you? And that was only about three weeks worth, so multiply that to a years worth and it's clear to see the humble penny is not insignificant at all.