The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

Canadian cash is better than American cash in several ways: No penny, durable polymer banknotes (instead of dirty wrinkly cotton paper), colorful banknotes (instead of all green) that are easy to distinguish, $1 and $2 coins in wide circulation (instead of worn-out $1 bills).

> Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change.

"Congratulations customer, we have a special coupon today for $0.03 off your purchase. Here's your change :)"

All the items in my dad's farm shop were priced so they came out to a round dollar amount after tax, and that was 40 years ago.

I guess you could calculate all of your prices such that, once sales tax is added, they round to a 5 cent value.

Can you show me the statute requiring the treasury department to coin pennies?

If we would adopt a policy of including local sales tax in advertised prices, skipping to whole dollars would be pretty painless.

The main reason to keep at least quarters is all of the various coin-op machines that are still in service.

We waited so long past when we should have gotten rid of the penny that now a coin ten times as valuable is also worthless enough that we ought to get rid of it.

Australian notes vary in size for this reason.

https://afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/ac...

Interestingly many of them had already put the work into updating the cash register software to allow for this due to the penny shortages during covid.

There's a small industry that specializes in knowing what the sales tax for a particular transaction should be at the moment it goes through.

Oregon residents didn’t pay sales tax when making purchases in Idaho. Washington charges sales tax on out of state purchases if that state’s sales tax is less than Washington’s, including if it is zero.

As far as I can tell the relevant statute is 31 USC §5112, and it does not require the minting of all authorized coins:

“(a) The Secretary of the Treasury *may mint* and issue only the following coins: ... (6) ... a one-cent coin that is 0.75 inch in diameter and weighs 3.11 grams.”

(Emphasis mine)

There may be another clause somewhere that requires the Treasury to issue all coins, but that seems unlikely to me. The _number_ of coins to issue of each type is left to the discretion of the Treasury; why wouldn't that include the option to issue none?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5112

Does having different sized coins strike you as an inconvenience?

Why does a feature that can be used by anyone, regardless of disability, strike you as "inconvenient for almost everybody"?

What, exactly, is inconvenient about having notes be different sizes?

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mo/st-louis/politics/2025/04/3... https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5111 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5112

The fact that all of that gives leeway for "'none' is all that's necessary" is why I said the legal basis was "shaky" and not "baseless". I think getting rid of pennies is good, but this is something that Congress needs to do, rather than continually abdicating its responsibilities.

Which helps partially sighted people and is a good visual check.

In Canada the bills are embossed with braille by the mint. There may be other accommodations too, but I haven't looked it up.

0: full

9: sale

8: reduced

7: clearance (item will not restock)

I forget the exact system Sears used but we could tell at a glance if a deal was really “good”.

I’m curious if Sears and WalMart used different systems and if WalMart exploited knowledge of the Sears system to signal better prices to shoppers. Like a full WalMart price being .97 and clearance being .94.

So for instance 1.69 in cash would be 1.70 but if you pay with your phone it stays at 1.69

This has its own pros/cons...

One advantage of $1 bill over coin is the majority of people in US don't need a wallet with zipper to hold coins. Five $1 bills is much less bulky and much lighter than five $1 CAD or five 1€ coins

I'm reminded of when Minnesota passed the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act (MCIAA) close to 20 years ago. (Some) restauranteurs - along with the GOP - made pronouncements about how this would destroy the economy. No one would go to out to eat or for a drink again. Doom and gloom.

Last I checked, there are plenty of restaurants open in the state, and things are going fine. In fact, just before the MCIAA went into effect, I had a newborn, and we went out to eat one time with him in tow. We asked for a non-smoking area but were placed immediately next to a family chain smoking. We decided to never go out to eat again until we could do so without risk of second-hand smoke.

My point is that there are frequently these predictions of things being impossible or even just incredibly difficult and not worth the effort, and in the end, it's not a big deal.

I think we should get rid of the penny, but it's Congress's responsibility to do that, and they haven't. I'm opposed to Congress abdicating its power and responsibility like that.

5111(a)(1) says “shall mint and issue coins” but qualifies it explicitly with “in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States”. This is a clear delegation of authority.

If you don't think zero pennies is a permissible amount, what about one penny? Two? What minimum number are you arguing for here, and what's your justification for it?

If Congress had wanted to set a minimum number, they could have done so.

Reading it as ”shall mint” is wrong, I think. “Shall” qualifies the whole clause “mint in amounts the Secretary decides (etc.)”.

Understood that way, 5111 makes it unlawful to mint any pennies if the Secretary decides that none are necessary.

Let me assure you that all Canadian banknotes are the same size too, 6.00 inch × 2.75 inch (152.40 mm × 69.85 mm). I'm not sure how the article got this fact wrong.

As a side note, Canadian banknotes don't have braille, but have an ad hoc system of bumps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_currency_tactile_feat...

Switching to round number prices would cost retailers a whole lot more.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243599...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23547242_Penny_Wise...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243590...

It also means a company wouldn't be able to advertise a single price for a product nationwide, since sales tax rates vary by state (and many times even within a state).

Also worth noting that Canada also doesn't include sales taxes.

It was 00 for full, 99 for sale (the majority of items, except for the one week every year they established the full price for that product), 8x for clearance.

This has never been my experience. What is the challenge?

BTW, the reason for wanting to get rid of the penny isn't so much the low purchasing value, but more that they cost more to make (~4c) than their face value, so the government loses money making them. The same is true of nickels.

Anyone who didn't find the feature useful could ignore it.

To be an effective fomite the currency has to not kill the microbe, and it has to readily give up the microbe to the next recipient. Organic materials like cotton or linen seem more likely to simply absorb a viral envelope or bacterial cell wall, thereby rendering it ineffective. Furthermore, the porous nature makes it more difficult for the note to give up any microbe that isn't immediately killed before it naturally dies over time.

A brief search of the scientific literature doesn't seem to show any conclusive results, but it does seem like the relative performance is pathogen specific.

Just like you don't need to know Japanese to count the exact amount of yen bills.

Right now, there's a huge number of elected people in the US who wield real local power through these taxes and other rules that they can make.

It's a headache but we live in the computer age and we can automate administrative things like tax calculation at checkout; we should be using systems to aid decentralization and democratization instead of the opposite.

If I’m buying online with a digital transaction you can charge whatever cents are necessary.

For my side, even if I did agree with your preference, I am perfectly willing to deal with the incredible hardship of slightly different sized notes in my wallet in exchange for a society where disabled people need not fear being ripped off.

That's because Canada had a plan, thought it through, and rolled it out.

In the US...

“We had a social media post (by Trump) during Super Bowl Sunday, but no real plan for what retailers would have to do,” he said, referring to the president’s February announcement.

We have a deranged old man posting random shit on social media determining federal policy, so of course it's a chaotic shitshow.

We elected a clown, we got a circus.

That solves half the problem, but you still don't know whether you're getting correct change.

A Japanese airline (Air Do) tried reintroducing the smoking section in the 1990s. It did not go well for them, and Japan's tobacco use rate was several times the US's.

That would be true for credit card fees, but not for stuff like loyalty card discounts.

"Likewise, coupons are almost always funded by the manufacturer who returns those monies to the store."

It doesn't matter. The store is the one charging the customer. As stated, the law says the store cannot charge SNAP recipients more. Thus it would be a violation if we are taking it strictly.

Yes. This system is more resistant to wear and tear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_cut_effect

In fact they have introduced a bill to do just that, that has not passed yet, which means they have not done that.

Right now, a company can say they sell gadget X for $999, which would not be possible if they had to work out item taxes.

The other possibility is that they now have to mark X up to take into account the most pessimistic possible tax rate and advertise the marked-up rate.

Again: Canada actually did this many years ago. The effect you predict did not appear.

Yeah, they had done the same thing when California did the same thing 30 years ago. The fact that it didn't happen then didn't stop them from doing it everywhere else similar laws were subsequently proposed.

There will surely be some customer pissed about the extra 2 cents they were charged who will raise hell over the exact change law.

But what customer is going to be upset over a small discount?