In the modern world, coins are a useless relic of a time before digital currency, and high costs of metal and low purchasing power of small denominations have pushed coins to no longer be needed in the current economy. Luckily for the people of the United States, the government is finally doing something about it.
On Nov. 12, the last ever American penny was minted in Philadelphia. The penny’s life was ended due to its low purchasing power and high cost of manufacturing, but many other coins fit that same criteria.
Coins exist to track monetary value, and in the United States, this is for almost exclusively values of less than a dollar. Today, the coin’s simple job of representing the value printed on them is useless and rarely ever correctly done.
Specifically, in the case of the penny, it costs the government four cents to make just one penny, an insane differential between the value of the coin and the value of the metal.
“God bless America, and we’re going to save the taxpayers $56 million,” said Treasurer Brandon Beach, before minting the final penny ever, according to AP News.
In addition to this skewed value, pennies can’t buy anything by themselves, which is the whole point of having money. Back when the penny was introduced in 1797, you could use a single penny to buy all sorts of things, like candies, biscuits or tobacco. Even if they were small things that you could buy with a penny, it was still something. Today if you walk in a store with a single penny, you wouldn’t be able to buy a thing.
There is another US coin that takes more to produce than it’s worth. The nickel, worth five cents, costs an astounding 14 cents to produce, meaning that in 2024, the US spent $19 billion producing nickels. This is the first reason for eliminating the nickel: it costs too much to produce.
The second penalty needed to match the elimination criteria set by the penny is purchasing power. What can you buy with five cents? Nothing. Just like the penny, you used to be able to buy a lot with a nickel, a loaf of bread, a hot dog or even a full meal at a public cafeteria. Now, like the penny, it is useless and should be eliminated as such.
The elimination of the penny and the nickel would put US currency into a problem called the “15 cent problem,” where it is impossible to make 15 cents with only dimes and quarters. Due to this problem, and for the sake of simplicity, the government should also eliminate the dime.
Some people believe that the loss of these coins would cause all businesses to round up, costing consumers a lot of money in the long run, but the lessening of taxes when the government doesn’t spend billions of dollars on useless coins could outweigh the cost of rounding up. But it would be difficult to tell the impact of the removal of these coins until their production stops.
“Coins are an essential part of how money works, and without them, people would lose billions,” said senior Brady Thomas.
On the other hand, some people agree that coins are terrible for other reasons, like how they gather germs and are relics of older economies.
“Coins are trash currency. Hunks of metal that gather germs? What are we in the Roman era? If it ain’t even gold, what’s the point? We left Britain for a reason and one of those was because of their horrible coins,” said history and economics teacher Jonathan Bushhouse.
Now, you may notice that there is one coin that I haven’t said is up for elimination, and that is the quarter. Despite its 25 cent value, it only costs 15 to make one quarter. Additionally, the US is unique in using a quarter, as most other countries break up their dollar into 20 cent pieces. Also, there are still things you can buy with a quarter, like some time on a parking meter, as well as being very helpful with vending and laundry machines.
Overall, the US government should continue on its path of eliminating coins by stopping the production of the dime and nickel, while keeping the quarter for the sake of patriotism.
