Nickel for Your Thoughts?
Apparently, a penny's just not going to cut it anymore.
There are moments in history that define a nation: The fall of the Berlin Wall. The storming of the Bastille. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The day McDonald’s started rounding Happy Meals to the nearest nickel.
Yes, friends, it’s official: if pennies were people, they’d be making final arrangements.
After 150 years of rolling around in cup holders, collecting pocket lint, and plugging up Coinstar machines and toddlers’ nostrils, President Trump in May ordered the U.S. Treasury to stop minting the one-cent coin that costs nearly four cents to make and begin phasing existing pennies out of circulation.
Now, the fallout is hitting wallets and cash registers across the nation. Fast food colossus McDonald’s announced they may not be able to provide exact change in the wake of the penny shortage, and that they would be rounding up—or down—accordingly. Customers who pay in the app or with a credit or debit card will not be affected.
Presumably, if half of all orders get rounded down and half get rounded up, regular patrons will probably end up in the general neighborhood of breaking even. But because this is America, where we invent new things to be outraged about every six minutes, the internet immediately screamed:
Other countries ditched their kiddie-coins years ago. France nixed the adorable little centime in 2002. Canada killed their penny in 2013. Australia got rid of theirs in the ‘60s (although they continued to produce potatoes and Hemsworths, notably). It’s just economic evolution, right? Natural selection, but make it currency.
It’s not just Micky D’s. Retailers including Home Depot, Kroger, Kwik Trip, and Sheetz are asking patrons to provide exact change or pay with a card. (A spokesperson for Kwik Trip said that if a customer can’t cough up a couple of pennies, they’re only rounding down because “it’s in the best interest of the guests.” Who said corporate chivalry was dead?) Meanwhile, some of the greedier chains are quietly rooting for a fully cashless setup—because if there’s no cash, there’s no rounding down, and they never have to lose a single cent in your favor again.
Is the whole mathematical feng shui thing fair? It seems to be. Is it legal? No one really knows. (Legislation to create a uniform rounding rule is moving through Congress though.) Is it the most ridiculous thing we’ve ever argued about? On the surface, it’s up there with Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?
For now, some states have laws saying cash customers must be treated the same as card customers. Some franchises are rounding individually. Some aren’t rounding at all. Some Americans are stockpiling pennies like they’re prepping for monetary end times. And honestly, it may not be the dumbest thing you could do—discontinued pennies have exploded in value before; a rare “Lincoln Wheat Penny” went for $1.7 million at auction—so hoarders could be sitting on an actual gold (or copper) mine.
Here’s the thing though: It’s only a matter of time before the mint comes for the nickel, too—apparently those cost fourteen cents apiece to coin. Do you see where this is heading? They phase out our currency one coin at a time (‘Maybe they won’t notice!’) until the dime is deemed “inefficient,” the quarter rendered “obsolete,” and the dollar bill accused of “contributing to climate change.” And just like that, we went from “it’s just a penny” to scanning our retinas in CVS to buy cough drops.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this all really is nothing… just a humble little coin retiring after a noble century and a half of service. But if, six months from now, Uncle Sam announces that dollar bills have been canceled and we’re expected to tap our wrists to buy Cheerios, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I’m trying to get past the fact that there are apparently people out there who need a laminated tutorial on how to round up and down.
I bet if everyone unloaded their piggy banks of Pennie’s and put them back into circulation we’d be just fine in the penny department