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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

(www.cnn.com)
553 points andrewl | 1 comments | 12 Nov 25 16:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.388s | source
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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.”

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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?
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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.
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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.

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1. 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.