The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now.

It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything.

Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a choke-hold on retailers, and the whole thing is basically a scheme that funnels money from the poor to the wealthy via interest and fees on the consumer, interchange fees, and rewards programs.

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story.

Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. And the math seems fair enough:

https://www.budget.canada.ca/2012/themes/theme2-info-eng.htm...

Basically, if something is $1.01 or $1.02, you round down. If it's $1.03 or $1.04, you round up. Rounding is to be applied after all taxes are paid, etc.

Of course, there was also central guidance and, well, everyone just followed it. It's called "having a society".

People blathering on about stores fixing the rounding are morons, there's no way to do so if you buy more than one item. No one gets ripped off with the above method. In the end, it just works out.

And really, who cares?! It's a penny.

> Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story.

It's not. Some US states have laws on the books that make it illegal for retailers to round up. The turmoil is that if the retailer can only round down to the nearest five cents, then they stand to lose from one to four cents per cash sale for any sale that is not a multiple of five cents. Add those one to four cent losses up over a large enough number of transactions and the retailer stands to lose a considerable sum over the course of a year. And many retail shops already operate with thin margins anyway, so the loss from "always round down" could erase whatever thin margins some shops already operate under.

They can add a "total not divisible by 5" fee, ranging from 1 to 4 cents

The other direction avoids a lot of stupid complains. Nobody will complain if the shop gives them a $0.04 gift.

The shop will. It can be a lot of money in aggregate. It also creates really pathological purchasing incentives, where spreading out large purchases over several small purchases can yield significant savings for the purchaser.

There's one exceedingly simple answer:

Keep the penny (possibly a new one that is cheaper to make).

We're basically breaking into jail on this one, creating more problems than we're solving.