Could we get rid of pennies as part of our currency and use the money for something else?

Yes please! I’m done with pennies!

What money are you proposing using, exactly? You can’t just take all the pennies out of circulation and consider it to be “found money” that’s free to spend. That’s making money appear out of nowhere, which causes deflation. This is also why the government can’t simply print more money and hand it out to everyone.

Hmm… I thought the questioner more meant can we phase out and stop producing pennies, then use the money we spend making more pennies on something else. Which I’m all about.

or we could melt them and make robots to do as we wish!

Good interpretation, EmpressPixie.

I guess then, the missing piece of data we need is how much money and time is spent on minting new pennies in America. I do know that it costs about double the face value to produce a new penny, which is something to consider. The US Mint’s website issues annual reports each year which include the number of total coins they produce (in 2004 it was 13,479,620,000 coins). I’ve continued looking into the data from 2004 (they have data from 08 but it’s a 30MB pdf file, no thanks right now) and the report contains other data points which could be used to find out the potential savings in abandoning the penny.

There may also be revenue gained in melting down any remaining copper pennies, as well as the smaller amounts of money gained by melting down and selling the zinc pennies.

However, one thing this analysis will not determine is the cost for America to abandon the penny. Pretty much every single cash point will need to be updated to round up or down to the nearest nickel, prices will need to be reconsidered, and overall the American public will need to be “sold” the idea of losing the penny via marketing.

So the data exists, someone just needs to extrapolate it. Sadly, that person is not me.

National Geographic had a piece about this recently. Apparently many Americans (and legislators) are in favor of eliminating the penny and rounding to the nearest nickle. Pennies rarely make it past a few circulations before they are put in jars or drawers. Every time the legislation to eliminate them comes up, it is shot down by the zinc lobby, because pennies are now mostly zinc and cost over 1 cent to produce. (duo beat me to that)
Side note: There soon will be new pennies with the different stages of Lincoln’s carreer on the “tails” side.

..What.
lols

I know it makes sense, but I like pennies.

Paean to Pennies
—Their shiny copper newness speaks to me of hope.

—What other currency or coin is associated with heaven? Pennies from Heaven compared vs. “filthy lucre” or “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

—Piggy banks everywhere would be lonely.

—Found a penny; it’s my lucky day!

…. but, I love pennies. It’s nice to find one heads up on the street and say that little rhyme. “See a penny? Pick it up! Now all day long, you’ll have good luck.”

I like pennies, too.

But you can’t just steal everyone’s pennies. That doesn’t make any sense at all.

@asmonet It doesn’t make sense and it certainly doesn’t make cents. (That was a little lame. Sorry.)

Lurve. :)

Sounds like something I’d hear on Schoolhouse Rock – The Economy.