Should the penny stay in circulation?

Answer 1

There is a lot of debate about this issue.

On one hand, some people say that prices would stay the same and you'd only round total bills up or down. It would save a lot of money because between 1/3 and 1/2 of all coins produced are cents.

Others say that individual prices would all be rounded upwards, so you'd pay more for each item, not just the total. Plus, sales taxes would be difficult to calculate because states and cities wouldn't want anyone to round down, only up.

There are also proposals to create a 2¢ coin like other countries use, to cut down the need for pennies.

This is also related to the question of replacing $1 bills with $1 coins, because doing that would save far more money than discontinuing pennies. Estimates are that replacing the bill with a coin (instead of trying to have both) would save 500 million to a billion dollars a year.