from Hacker News

The Treasury unveils its plan to kill the penny

by haunter on 5/22/25, 3:04 PM with 19 comments

• by WalterGR on 5/22/25, 5:48 PM

  This seems silly.

  How much does this save the government as a percentage of total spending?

  How much will this cost the government vs. how much it saves?

  How much will this cost businesses in the US in total compared to the amount saved by the government?

  How much will this increase costs to consumers, given that businesses will (barring legislation) inevitably round up to the nearest $0.05?

• by aaronbaugher on 5/22/25, 4:08 PM

  It seems like I've been hearing about a new plan to get rid of the penny every few years for my whole life, and I'm 55. Probably every administration spends a few million studying it and then either decides "Nah" or just never gets around to doing it. I don't care, personally, but I suppose it'd be better if they went ahead and did it so we could stop paying people to plan to.

• by duxup on 5/22/25, 3:05 PM

  This is one of those PR "efficiency" things that I'm kinda skeptical about how much it even matters.

• by WarOnPrivacy on 5/22/25, 3:49 PM

  I'd like to see pennies and nickles go away. I wouldn't auger an entire nation into the ground for it but on it's own, I think it serves us.

  Seeing compulsive $xx.99 marketers adapt to pennylessness could be amusing.

• by JohnFen on 5/22/25, 4:54 PM

  This is one of the small handful of things I actually agree with the administration about. We should have eliminated the penny years ago.