No more new pennies

[ErmineNotyours]

When it's not worth your time to literally receive the money that's due to you, then there's a problem with the money.

Yeah, it's called "inflation".

[NWI_Irish96]

When it's not worth your time to literally receive the money that's due to you, then there's a problem with the money.

Yeah, it's called "inflation".

Yes, and most other countries have adapted to inflation by eliminating their smallest currencies, but we're still stuck in the past and have 1 cent coins and 1 dollar bills.

Simplicity = efficiency. Have coins worth $0.05, $0.25 and $1.00. Have bills worth $2, $5, $20 and $100. Maybe with inflation we need to bring back the $500.

You can make any exact amount up to $99.95 with only 9 bills and 8 coins.

[mgk920]

When it's not worth your time to literally receive the money that's due to you, then there's a problem with the money.

Yeah, it's called "inflation".

Yes, and most other countries have adapted to inflation by eliminating their smallest currencies, but we're still stuck in the past and have 1 cent coins and 1 dollar bills.

Simplicity = efficiency. Have coins worth $0.05, $0.25 and $1.00. Have bills worth $2, $5, $20 and $100. Maybe with inflation we need to bring back the $500.

You can make any exact amount up to $99.95 with only 9 bills and 8 coins.

Since 'nickels' CANNOT be made and circulated at a profit to federal taxpayers and Nickels are needed for Dimes to work, I would drop both and make 'Quarters' (25¢ coins) the smallest denomination issued in the USA.  Make the current USA currency slate of: coins - $0.25, 1, 2 and 5 and banknotes - $10 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500.

Mike

[NWI_Irish96]

When it's not worth your time to literally receive the money that's due to you, then there's a problem with the money.

Yeah, it's called "inflation".

Yes, and most other countries have adapted to inflation by eliminating their smallest currencies, but we're still stuck in the past and have 1 cent coins and 1 dollar bills.

Simplicity = efficiency. Have coins worth $0.05, $0.25 and $1.00. Have bills worth $2, $5, $20 and $100. Maybe with inflation we need to bring back the $500.

You can make any exact amount up to $99.95 with only 9 bills and 8 coins.

Since 'nickels' CANNOT be made and circulated at a profit to federal taxpayers and Nickels are needed for Dimes to work, I would drop both and make 'Quarters' (25¢ coins) the smallest denomination issued in the USA.  Make the current USA currency slate of: coins - $0.25, 1, 2 and 5 and banknotes - $10 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500.

Mike

You can change the size/makeup of the nickel to make it cost less. May not get it all the way down to 5 cents, but close enough to justify keeping it.

I don't see us getting rid of them anytime soon anyway.

[kalvado]

The true answer is, of course, cutting down on card processing fees. 

[Scott5114]

Simplicity = efficiency

No it doesn't. Having a higher piece count—which you do with your repeated attempts to remove anything with a denomination of 10 (I am starting to think this is a fetish or something)—makes it take longer to count and therefore less efficient.

You can change the size/makeup of the nickel to make it cost less. May not get it all the way down to 5 cents, but close enough to justify keeping it.

Honestly, at some point we should really swap the dime and nickel blanks. Now that everything has basically the same metallic composition the dime being the smallest coin makes no sense.

[MikeTheActuary]

The true answer is, of course, cutting down on card processing fees. 

Gene Roddenberry promised us an economy where money wasn't required.

[MikeTheActuary]

Make the current USA currency slate of: coins - $0.25, 1, 2 and 5 and banknotes - $10 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500.

At the rate the conflicting pressures of inflation, fear of facilitating crime, and currency disuse are going, we might as well move to having a single $1 coin, and bills in denominations of $5, $10, and $20.

[hbelkins]

The true answer is, of course, cutting down on card processing fees. 

Gene Roddenberry promised us an economy where money wasn't required.

Except for quatloos.

[kphoger]

Simplicity = efficiency

No it doesn't. Having a higher piece count—which you do with your repeated attempts to remove anything with a denomination of 10 (I am starting to think this is a fetish or something)—makes it take longer to count and therefore less efficient.

Honestly, nothing below a quarter has much real-world value to anybody.  If everything were priced in multiples of 25¢, then pretty much everyone would be fine with that.  Except, stores probably don't want to round their totals down to the nearest quarter, the way they've been rounding down to the nearest nickel.

[ClassicHasClass]

The true answer is, of course, cutting down on card processing fees. 

Gene Roddenberry promised us an economy where money wasn't required.

Except for quatloos.

Daddy needs some gold-pressed latinum.

[kalvado]

The true answer is, of course, cutting down on card processing fees. 

Gene Roddenberry promised us an economy where money wasn't required.

Except for quatloos.

Daddy needs some gold-pressed latinum.

Gold-plated with pure tin

[MikeTheActuary]

Except, stores probably don't want to round their totals down to the nearest quarter, the way they've been rounding down to the nearest nickel.

I'll admit that it would take a couple of additional brain-processing cycles for me to mentally do rounding to the nearest quarter, whereas rounding to the nearest nickel or dime requires almost no conscious thought.

Considering (as you might infer from my username) I'm extremely comfortable with numbers, some of the complaints being raised by the American masses against nickel-rounding, and the challenges some cash register jockeys have with making change...I can see where this would be a somewhat reasonable argument against quarter-rounding.

(I suppose, however, that if quarter-rounding became a thing, I'd probably get that to an "almost no conscious thought" state with a bit of practice...although given that I almost never use cash anymore, I'd probably have to make a concerted effort to get that practice.)

[wxfree]

The true answer is, of course, cutting down on card processing fees. 

Gene Roddenberry promised us an economy where money wasn't required.

Except for quatloos.

Daddy needs some gold-pressed latinum.

And so does Moogie.  But she'd be sold as a slave.

[kphoger]

Except, stores probably don't want to round their totals down to the nearest quarter, the way they've been rounding down to the nearest nickel.

I'll admit that it would take a couple of additional brain-processing cycles for me to mentally do rounding to the nearest quarter, whereas rounding to the nearest nickel or dime requires almost no conscious thought.

Considering (as you might infer from my username) I'm extremely comfortable with numbers, some of the complaints being raised by the American masses against nickel-rounding, and the challenges some cash register jockeys have with making change...I can see where this would be a somewhat reasonable argument against quarter-rounding.

(I suppose, however, that if quarter-rounding became a thing, I'd probably get that to an "almost no conscious thought" state with a bit of practice...although given that I almost never use cash anymore, I'd probably have to make a concerted effort to get that practice.)

It's especially important to remember that it seems a lot of stores are simply always rounding down to the nearest nickel now.  I assume this is in order to avoid any customer complaints about getting ripped off when the price is rounded up.  $13.74 to $13.70 is easier for a business owner to stomach than $13.74 to $13.50.

[Jim]

If always going down to the nearest quarter at the point of sale, would the difference be enough that the person who needs 20 items at the grocery store would bother doing 20 separate transactions to get each item rounded down?

Maybe cash-heavy businesses would just make sure that their prices result in multiples of 25 cents or just above (after tax), at least on items where that price is low enough that the 1-24 cents off is mostly negligible.

In any case, just like it would be with the 5 cent increments from elimination of the penny, elimination of nickels and dimes as well would be a very solvable problem.  If I'm in charge, I go for that: eliminate the penny, nickel, dime, paper $1, make more $1 coins, introduce $2 coins and let consumers and businesses figure it out.

[GaryV]

If a transaction is rounded down, does that have an effect on how much sales tax is due? The store collected less in sales. And do we know if the round-off comes from taxable or non-taxable items?

[kkt]

The true answer is, of course, cutting down on card processing fees. 

Right, unicorns are going to fly out of my butt.

[oscar]

In any case, just like it would be with the 5 cent increments from elimination of the penny, elimination of nickels and dimes as well would be a very solvable problem.  If I'm in charge, I go for that: eliminate the penny, nickel, dime, paper $1, make more $1 coins, introduce $2 coins and let consumers and businesses figure it out.

I would follow Canada's lead, since it's gone through this exercise already. It eliminated the penny in 2012, and earlier the paper $1 bill (and also the $2 bill, which is pretty useless in the U.S. already but I keep one in my wallet anyway), but kept its nickel and dime.

Why hasn't Canada offed its nickel and dime, even though it's less been reluctant than the U.S. to mess with its money?

[Jim]

To have some real fun, instead of a $2 coin, introduce a $3 coin and also eliminate the $5 bill. (No, I wouldn't really propose that.)

[kphoger]

If a transaction is rounded down, does that have an effect on how much sales tax is due? The store collected less in sales. And do we know if the round-off comes from taxable or non-taxable items?

But the store still collected the same amount of sales tax either way.  Therefore, shouldn't it owe the same amount of sales tax?  The store collected less in money from customers, but that shouldn't affect taxes.

I am not an expert.

[Scott5114]

and also the $2 bill, which is pretty useless in the U.S. already but I keep one in my wallet anyway

I actually enjoy getting a bunch of $2s and spending them like any other denomination (why not, they just printed a batch last month). They're actually pretty useful because you can do things like use three of them for $6 if you don't have a $5 on you at the time (you will pretty much always have a bunch of $1s on you if you're using $2s because you're still getting them back in change up to four at time if you're also using $20s, but you aren't spending more than $1 at time).

The real problem with the $2 is that it's a pain in the ass to get ahold of them, since many banks don't bother stocking them in the vault, so you have to call ahead a few days in advance and request them, and some banks have ridiculous minimums (a minimum of $200, since that's one strap, is reasonable, but I've heard some people say their bank requires you to buy a whole brick, which is ten straps or $2000). And of course you're going to be giving them out and never getting any back—why cashiers don't give out the ones they get as payment I will never understand—so you have to restock pretty often.

[kphoger]

why cashiers don't give out the ones they get as payment I will never understand

Agreed, this is a weird phenomenon.  Same with dollar coins.

[Scott5114]

why cashiers don't give out the ones they get as payment I will never understand

Agreed, this is a weird phenomenon.  Same with dollar coins.

Dollar coins I understand. People don't look at the coins and think you shorted them. Even once they know the change is right, I got customers who were mad enough about getting dollar coins that they actually waited while they made me go get the manager to open the drawer and give them bills instead.

But I never had a bad reaction when handing out $2s at Burger King. Most people thought they were neat. (I did have bad reactions at the casino, but that's because a lot of the machines had "Accept $2 bills = NO" in the settings. There is no good reason for this; other models of machines defaulted to "YES", and the vault could process $2s from those just fine.)

[1995hoo]

why cashiers don't give out the ones they get as payment I will never understand

Agreed, this is a weird phenomenon.  Same with dollar coins.

Some people save them. I saw a guy use $2s to pay for a beer at a Redskins game many years ago and the beer man was so excited, he immediately pulled out his wallet, put the $2s in it, and replaced them in the beer vendor thing with other bills from his wallet.

I gave a bartender in Honolulu a $2 and she went around showing it to everyone else there, so I'm sure she saved it too.