A Nickel For Your Thoughts?
Stacking up the arguments for and against the penny
October 19, 2006
Rachel Anderson Utne.com
See a penny on the ground and you might just walk right by. Find
one while cleaning and you may even throw it away. Thanks to
inflation, it's hard to argue that the penny really has any
monetary value anymore. And yet, a heated debate replete with the
hallmarks of good political drama is underway regarding whether the
penny should be preserved or retired.
RELATED CONTENT
It wasn't terribly long after the US penny was first minted in
the late 1700s that people recognized the deflating value of small
currency. The half-penny, minted shortly after the penny, was
retired in less than 70 years. Instead of being phased out like its
predecessor, though, the penny stuck around. In a piece for the
alt-weekly
The Phoenix, Mike Miliard credits the
coin's staying power to its embodiment of American virtues like
'frugality and financial smarts.'
Such lofty cultural associations aren't treasured by all,
though. In fact, nearly a third of Americans support the retirement
of the penny. One of the most vocal anti-penny campaigners is US
Representative Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), who has introduced two bills (in
2002 and 2006) to phase out the penny. Kolbe's motives go beyond
the banal hassle of being weighted down by useless pocket change.
The copper-coated penny is made of 97.5 percent zinc. The nickel,
on the other hand, is made mostly of copper. As Miliard notes, it's
Arizona, the largest copper producer in the United States, that
stands to earn big cash by nixing the coin. (Kolbe is also lobbying
for a switch from paper $1 bills to $1 coins, reportedly also to be
made of copper.) Of course, the other side of the argument doesn't
seem so innocent either. As Miliard reports, 'the pro-penny lobby
is indeed funded in large part by the zinc industry.'
Instead of focusing on mineral affiliations, anti-penny groups
reiterate that not only is the penny virtually worthless, it's
actually an economic drain. In a piece for the Georgetown
University newspaper,
Hoya, columnist Eric Rodawig points out
that the value of the penny is so meager that it's not worth the
cost of making it -- about 1.4 cents per coin. In essence, a
50-cent roll of pennies costs 70 cents to produce.