Penny Debate Essay Examples

Eliminate the Penny!

Since 2001, members of Congress have questioned the practicality of the penny as it has the lowest monetary value in U.S. currency. Although many believe that this coin should be kept, pennies are useless and time-consuming, and therefore, should be eliminated.

Compared to previous centuries, pennies have grown to be invaluable and have created more problems. In William Safire’s article in the New York Times, he questions the worth of a penny presuming that “you can’t buy anything with a penny anymore” (Safire). As years pass, the penny slowly loses its value. It used to be sufficient to buy items at the “five-and-dime” stores. These stores are now replaced with “dollar” stores (Safire). The inability to buy items with just a few cents results in pennies being lost or thrown away because attempting to use them is a nuisance. Mark W. Weller disagrees with the published article stating that pennies are still used today and “do not drop out of circulation” (Weller). He compares the penny to other coins in the U.S. currency and explains that pennies disappear at similar rates as other coins. Many argue that “the penny is perhaps the most visible and tangible reminder of Lincoln’s significance in American history” (Source F). However, historical significance is not enough to keep pennies in the U.S. currency system. Many do not consider the penny’s appearance when trying to use it. Pennies are certainly used in modern times but are still worth little to nothing.

Along with their impracticality, pennies are also counterproductive. Attempting to find, calculate, and record pennies in each cash transaction absorbs a considerable amount of time for its meager worth. Jeff Gore, a student at the University of California at Berkeley, calculated that it takes approximately “4 hours per person per year” to monitor pennies (Kahn). This amount of wasted time can be converted to the amount of money lost by just counting these pennies. This means that if a person’s time is worth “$15/hour then we arrive at the conclusion that each person is losing $60 per year” (Kahn). The article by William Safire appears again as he agrees with Jeff Gore’s statistics that pennies take up a lot of time. The workers who manufacture pennies waste their time as well. They “could be more usefully employed” instead of ordering workers to “count, pack up and take [pennies] to the bank” (Safire). Both Kahn and Safire justify that pennies are time-consuming to their owners and distributors. Combining the weight, shape, and low value of these coins only adds to the pointlessness of carrying them around. Pennies are unproductive to the extent people lose money counting this invaluable form of currency.

Many are comparing the benefits and disadvantages of the penny due to the government’s concerns about it being unnecessary to today’s system. They are not worth much and are quite time-consuming to distribute and use. There is no point in using pennies if they have no value and will only waste time that could be used elsewhere.