What’s one way to shrink the options for consumers wanting to use cash for purchases for goods? Delete pennies. Many say “no big deal if the penny goes away”, but do they fully realize the impact that little cent actually makes.
Without the penny denomination, pricing structures at businesses change immediately Pricing in the short term requires a “round up/round down” to the nearest nickel which actually impacts the accounting and balancing of ledgers.
Without the penny denomination, end of day cash drawers no longer balance as they used to, which requires manual processes to be put in place. These processes can impact businesses negatively by adding time and stress to what used to be a straight forward process
Pricing structures need to be readjusted TO ACCEPT CASH going forward. Pricing items to possibly “include tax” to ensure the purchase receipt automatically ends the “coin” portion of the sale less than $0.05.
How does a business claim / reconcile that “overpayment “ of coin or customer refusal to accept penny as change? Is it marked as a “donation” or “tip” for employees that are not in tipped positions?
Solution?…. Many businesses opt to no longer accept cash as a form of payment not only due to the hassle, but also due to the reduced number of customers that did actually use cash in the first place Businesses are not hesitant to make a decision to no longer accept cash if only 2% of their sales are actually made in cash. Very few of their customer experiences are impacted.
End result…. By just eliminating $0.01 … you have begun the process of a “cashless society” out of a perceived “convenience”
Let’s discuss!
Thank you OP. Thinking similarly about this since it was announced. I am interested to hear more thoughts on this decision. Could the nickel and dime be next, and everything rounded to 25 cents? I am no economist, yet it seems like essentially our base is now 5 cents for cash transactions. How does that work at scale? Seems fishy. Also, the excuse it cost something like 3 cents to make a penny, somehow justifies the decision. Anectdotally it makes sense, but how does it really play out. I wish our currency value was backed by gold like we used to. This fiat economy is reckless.
You hit it. It costs .03c to make because the dollar has become that worthless. The nickel is next. I'd be hording rolls of them. Look at the value of "junk" silver. A roll of dimes is $300. You get almost a 100% ROI now on a nickel based on the value of the metal.
It's the fiat economy that is the problem. I know many fear that this leads to digital currency. But maybe our traditional coin and paper currency will be reset to the gold standard and stay in use!