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    The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

    (www.cnn.com)
    460 points andrewl | 12 comments | 12 Nov 25 16:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.496s | source | bottom
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    Amorymeltzer ◴[12 Nov 25 18:05 UTC] No.45903482[source]▶
    Some interesting complications with rounding I had not heard about before were mentioned here, worth noting I think, especially given the prominence of SNAP in the news lately:

    >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, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).

    >In addition, the law covering the federal food assistance program known as SNAP requires that recipients not be charged more than other customers. Since SNAP recipients use a debit card that’s charged the precise amount, if merchants round down prices for cash purchases, they could be opening themselves to legal problems and fines, said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for NACS.

    >“Rounding down on all transactions presents several challenges beyond the loss of an average of 2 cents per transaction,” Lenard said. “We desperately need legislation that allows rounding so retailers can make change for these customers.”

    replies(6): >>45903640 #>>45903663 #>>45903907 #>>45904222 #>>45906009 #>>45907738 #
    phantom784 ◴[12 Nov 25 18:15 UTC] No.45903640[source]▶
    For the SNAP law, could they just round down SNAP purchases in the same way to be compliant?
    replies(2): >>45903681 #>>45904144 #
    1. anticorporate ◴[12 Nov 25 18:45 UTC] No.45904144[source]▶
    The SNAP equal treatment rule requirement works in both directions: Prices cannot be higher or lower for SNAP recipients. As a retailer, there is an option to request a waiver, though.
    replies(3): >>45904221 #>>45904364 #>>45906968 #
    2. phantom784 ◴[12 Nov 25 18:50 UTC] No.45904221[source]▶
    How does this work with coupons, discount for loyalty card holders, etc.?

    Presumably that's fine because a SNAP recipient has access to those same discounts. So wouldn't this be the same - the "cash rounding" discount is available to SNAP and people paying cash?

    replies(1): >>45906426 #
    3. jkaplowitz ◴[12 Nov 25 18:57 UTC] No.45904364[source]▶
    So, that sounds like a yes, they could round up or down SNAP purchases just like cash purchases.
    replies(1): >>45904570 #
    4. Uvix ◴[12 Nov 25 19:06 UTC] No.45904570[source]▶
    No, because they'd still be paying less/more than people paying with credit cards, debit cards, or checks.
    replies(3): >>45905154 #>>45905513 #>>45907203 #
    5. wat10000 ◴[12 Nov 25 19:36 UTC] No.45905154{3}[source]▶
    Round them all. Why is this so difficult?
    replies(1): >>45907112 #
    6. ◴[12 Nov 25 19:56 UTC] No.45905513{3}[source]▶
    7. rtkwe ◴[12 Nov 25 20:48 UTC] No.45906426[source]▶
    Anyone can have a coupon the law is about not special fees or discounts to SNAP recipients, and since EBT/SNAP cards are essentially debit cards them always being charged exact change could be litigated as differential pricing in theory, which in a country as big and sue happy as the US means someone will try it eventually.
    8. SkyPuncher ◴[12 Nov 25 21:26 UTC] No.45906968[source]▶
    IMO, this is a strawman that is either going to be ignored or fixed easily.

    The law did not account for every possible situation. Removal of the penny from national currency is clear a situation where minor variations on otherwise normal transactions would not be in violation of the intent of the law.

    It'd be like TSA griping that your 100ml bottle of mouthwash was overfilled by .1ml because of slight variations in the filling process. Nobody cares.

    replies(1): >>45907692 #
    9. Uvix ◴[12 Nov 25 21:38 UTC] No.45907112{4}[source]▶
    Retailers will reject ever rounding down because they lose money, and customers will reject ever rounding up because they lose money.
    replies(1): >>45907300 #
    10. ◴[12 Nov 25 21:45 UTC] No.45907203{3}[source]▶
    11. zamadatix ◴[12 Nov 25 21:53 UTC] No.45907300{5}[source]▶
    Completely different discussion. Regardless, you skipped explaining why these options worked for Canadian Penny (just 12 years ago) at a time when their penny had more buying power than the current US penny, yet the exact same thing cannot ever possibly work for the US penny.

    Things don't just happen to cost *.99 today either, the market just has wiggle room for bullshit about values. With inflation, the coinage that corresponds to also inflates over time. The penny is long past its time.

    Furthermore:

    > Rounding to the closest nickel will cost consumers about $6 million a year, according to a July study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. That is fairly modest, coming to about five cents each across 133 million American households.

    The US lost ~$85 million minting pennies in 2024 because they cost more to make than they are worth. That's over a 10x savings, not a loss. 5 cents is also less than 0.00006% of median household income in 2024.

    If people were actually that worried we'd have had laws about credit card transaction fees decades ago.

    12. anticorporate ◴[12 Nov 25 22:23 UTC] No.45907692[source]▶
    I work in admin for a retailer. We got a nastigram from USDA last week reminding us that we were in no circumstances to help SNAP recipients in any way. The current administration very much does not care what the intent of the law is, and is actively looking for trivial violations as an excuse to punish SNAP recipients and SNAP retailers. It would not surprise me at all to see a retailer banned from the program for how they round pennies.