PotD: Is the penny obsolete?

[Kalahari Inkantation]

We should kill the penny.

[don't let's]

We should kill the penny.

wise

[YPrrrr]

Kill it

[Kalahari Inkantation]

fun fact:

The United States abandoned its own most worthless coin, the half-cent, in 1857, when a half-cent was worth more than a dime is today.

A half penny today adjusted for inflation would be worth about 15 cents.

honestly i'd be all for getting rid of all denominations below the quarter

[Hiro]

I'd say we should ditch pennies and nickels, dimes are cool with me

[Hiro]

But also if we get rid of nickels, 25 cents would kinda become invalid too so uhhh

[Kalahari Inkantation]

But also if we get rid of nickels, 25 cents would kinda become invalid too so uhhh

How so?

in any case there would be no point in keeping one single coin denomination around, if we discontinue everything up to the quarter we may as well kill the quarter too lol

or keep the quarter, kill the dollar bill and change it into a coin

[Samus Aran]

Killing the penny seems to have worked for Canada. We could definitely do the same. It's not even just the fact that pennies cost so much to mint comparable to their value - it's also that so many of these things aren't even in circulation because the average American sees no real point in keeping/using pennies.

[Hiro]

I think killing all change would be too drastic, but here's my reasoning: if we ditch the nickel but kept dimes and quarters, potential amounts would be 0.10, 0.20, 0.25, 0.30, 0.40, 0.50, 0.60, 0.70, 0.75, 0.80, and 0.90
Meaning you'd HAVE to have quarters for 0.25 and 0.75 but nothing else, since you couldn't have 2 dimes and a nickel, or even just five nickels since those coins were deemed invalid.
We either need to keep nickels along with quarters and dimes, or just have dimes and nothing else, which would be my preference.

[Kalahari Inkantation]

kill everything below the quarter and introduce a 50¢ piece

[Hiro]

That would be totally unnecessary though, the issue is the 25 and 75 cent increments

[don't let's]

Plastic only

[C.Mongler]

kill all money capitalist scum

[The Hand That Fisted Everyone]

hasn't licoln died enough for you people?

[Samus Aran]

start with just the penny imo

it's less disruptive to round to .05 on transactions than to round to .10