Death to pennies

Did you know it costs more to make a penny than it’s actually worth? According to the U.S. Mint, a penny costs 2.41 cents to produce. The penny’s value has been eaten away at for so long now, it is worth a negative amount!

In 2013, the government spent nearly $169 million just to put $70 million of currency into circulation. And this figure doesn’t take the time drain into consideration -- handling pennies adds an average of 2 seconds to each cash transaction. Given the roughly 100 billion annual cash transactions, using pennies wastes 120 million hours per year. Add that to the cost of minting them, and economists have estimated that we waste over $900 million each year on pennies!

Yes, it’s pretty and it holds a certain sentimental value. But are we willing to waste that much of our hard-earned money on sentimentality?

Abraham Lincoln’s not going anywhere. He will still be honored on the five dollar bill. Let’s do the rational thing, and retire the penny once and for all.

President Obama and several Republican Congressmen have spoken up in favor of retiring the penny. This is because right, left, or center, all parties know that the country needs to save as much money as possible, and it's impossible to save money when it's being wasted.

Let’s call on the Director of the Bureau of Economic Analysis to recommend retiring the penny now.