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By D.G. Martin

A penny for your thoughts.

Put your two cents in.

It turns out that these pennies and cents are costing Americans millions of dollars every year.

New York Times Magazine writer Caity Weaver, writing in the August 9 edition, shocked readers by asserting, “I was disappointed to learn, recently, that the United States has created for itself a logistical problem so stupendously stupid, one cannot help wondering if it is wise to continue to allow this nation to supervise the design of its own holiday postage stamps, let alone preside over the administration of an extensive Interstate highway system or nuclear arsenal. It’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. I have come to think of it as the Perpetual Penny Paradox.”

Weaver describes the surprising trap that we have gotten ourselves into. She asserts, “Most pennies produced by the U.S. Mint are given out as change but never spent.”

She describes how these unspent pennies make their way into our jars and chests of drawers instead of being spent. These unspent pennies must be replaced by the U.S. Mint.

She explains, “Because these replacement pennies will themselves not be spent, they will need to be replaced with new pennies that will also not be spent, and so will have to be replaced with new pennies that will not be spent, which will have to be replaced by new pennies (that will not be spent, and so will have to be replaced). In other words, we keep minting pennies because no one uses the pennies we mint.”

And on and on.

Why does the mint keep on making tons of pennies if no one uses them?

Weaver answers, “We have to keep making all these pennies – over $45 million worth last year – because no one uses them. In fact, it could be very bad if we did.”

Why?

Weaver reports a conservative estimate that there are “240 billion pennies lying around the United States — about 724 ($7.24) for every man, woman and child there residing, and enough to hand two pennies to every bewildered human born since the dawn of man.”

Our problem, she explains, is that “few of us ever spend pennies. We mostly just store them. The one-cent coins are wherever you’ve left them: a glass jar, a winter purse, a RAV4 cup holder, a five-gallon water cooler dispenser, the couch. Many of them are simply on the ground.”

Each year the Mint has to replace all these lost pennies at a cost of more than three cents each.

Instead of making new pennies, why not just collect a portion of those that are now kept in our jars, chests and other hiding places?

Weaver says, “It’s crucial that they remain there. Five years ago, Mint officials conceded that if even a modest portion of these dormant pennies were suddenly to return to circulation, the resulting flow-back would be ‘logistically unmanageable.’”

“There would be so unbelievably many pennies that there most likely would not be enough room to contain them inside government vaults. Moving them from place to place would be time-consuming, cumbersome and costly. (Just $100 worth of pennies weighs a touch over 55 pounds.) With each new penny minted, this problem becomes slightly more of a problem.”

Could we live without pennies?

For the most part we are already getting along using credit cards, electronic payments and other non-cash devices to bill and pay. Merchants, even at the farmers’ markets, happily take credit cards even though it costs them a little extra.

I am going to save my pennies, nickels and dimes.

But my grandchildren will hardly remember them.

That is my two cents worth.

D.G. Martin, a retired lawyer, served as UNC-System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s North Carolina Bookwatch.

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