It costs a pretty penny to mint one United States cent. With the prices of zinc and copper going through the roof, the smallest American denomination is now worth more as a commodity than a currency, prompting Americans to wonder whether they should drop the little coin with Abraham Lincoln on its face down the well for good.
The US Mint recently revealed in a letter to Congress that it now costs 1,23 cents to make a penny out of copper and zinc. It projected the costs for next year at 1,40 cents as Asian demand drives up the prices.
The so-called copper penny has since 1982 been 97,5% zinc, with copper making up just the coin’s external dusting.
The US Mint stamps about eight billion pennies a year, but a simple one cent coin hardly buys anything anymore.
The mint has begun discussing the possibility of introducing other metals for the coin. But lawmakers like Republican Jim Kolbe suggest the more radical idea of simply phasing out the penny.
Kolbe proposes rounding out all future transaction to the nearest nickel (five cents), his office said.
Backing him is the “Citizens for Retiring the Penny” group that believes that the cent was turning into a “waste of money”.
They argue that the penny costs $100-million a year to manufacture and that it will not be even accepted by most standard American vending machines.
Opposing them is the pro-penny lobby, “Americans for Common Cents”.
They warn of potential inflation should the penny be dropped and estimate that its elimination would amount to a roughly $600-million annual “tax” on the US population.
They also point to the European Union, which still mints the euro penny even though some member states have grumbled about its cost.
Their final argument: hundreds of American charities that make a living off the little coin, which people donate rather than spend, might disappear themselves.
Polls show that Americans are attached to their old currency. A June USA Today/Gallup survey showed that 55% of respondents considered it “useful”.
But 23% admitted that they would not bother to stoop down and pick one up if they saw it rolling around on the ground.
But as an inseparable facet of US culture and identity, the penny, featuring the profile of the first Republican president in the country’s history, still has some kick in its step left. It will be reproduced in four different versions in 2009 — the year of Lincoln’s bicentennial. – AFP