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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
bysabbede ( 2678435 ) writes:
Can we just mint a ton of them once or twice a decade? I get that it doesn't make sense to spend more than one cent to mint a penny, but we should refresh the supply every now and again.
byArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) writes:
Why bother? Nostalgia? Just to add some perspective here, when the US first discontinued the small penny, which was half of a cent, it was worth roughly 15 cents in today's money. The large penny, (which got smaller at point) which was one cent, was worth more than today's quarter at about 30 cents.
So back then, prices were incremented by more than today's quarter. There's no reason we can't simply do the same today. We may as well even get rid of nickels and dimes while we're at it. A nickel and a dime tod
byPCM2 ( 4486 ) writes:
One reason I can think of is that different states and municipalities impose different rates of sales tax at the register. Multiplying a retail price by 8.75% may not always produce an even, round number.
byAnonymous Coward writes:
Other countries don't seen to have a problem. They just round up or down.
byYrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) writes:
US military in Europe did away with pennies in 1980. The only place you could use a penny was the Post Office.
Nary a problem.
Round up or down to the nearest .05 or .0. It averages out over time.
bywill4 ( 7250692 ) writes:
It will take a bit for Wal-mart, which introduced digital price tags nationwide recently, Target and Kroger to ensure that all their goods round up to the nearest 5 cents including tax for the local jurisdiction.
The stores have been trying to eliminate cash handling since the pandemic to lower their own costs and "because it's convenient" according to the store. "Convenient" begin the code word for "convenient and more profitable for the store" and not the customer.
byjjhall ( 555562 ) writes:
They don't need to adjust the shelf price, just round to the nearest nickel on the final after-tax total. Some transactions will round up by 2 cents, some will round down. Over a given timeframe the net rounding will be zero. Same for customers, their net difference over a number of transactions will also be zero. Adjusting the shelf price will always be a guess anyway since a "20% off" sale or coupon will break the carefully-calculated adjustments.
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