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Pennies Are Trash Now | The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies.
(www.theatlantic.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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Canada phased out the penny from 2013-2013. It was an adjustment, but it was not chaos. Pennies of certain periods are still taken as legal tender and accepted by banks.
Per Wikipedia:
"Cash transactions in Canada are now rounded to the nearest multiple of 5 cents.[54] The rounding is not done on each individual item, but on the total amount, with totals being rounded to the nearest multiple of 5, i.e., totals ending in 1 or 2 round down to 0, totals ending in 3, 4, 6, or 7 round to 5, and totals ending in 8 or 9 round up to 10.[54] This is typical of cash rounding methods (not specific to Canada). While existing pennies will remain legal tender indefinitely, those in circulation were withdrawn on February 4, 2013.[55][48][56]
Based on technical specifications provided by the Mint Act, only pennies produced from 1982 to their discontinuation in 2013 are still legally "circulation coins".[57] The Currency Act says that "A payment in coins [...] is a legal tender for no more than [...] twenty-five cents if the denomination is one cent."[58] Nevertheless, once distribution of the coin ceased, vendors were no longer expected to return pennies as change for cash purchases and were encouraged to round purchases to the nearest five cents.[59] Goods can still be priced in one-cent increments, with non-cash transactions like credit cards being paid to the exact cent.[60] "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(Canadian_coin)
I wish the USG had published guidelines and regulations prior to discontinuing manufacture, like the Canadian government did.
It's unclear that rounding prices is legal everywhere in the US, particularly rounding up against the consumer in areas with preexisting truth-in-pricing regulation in place.
Eliminating the penny is good. The way the USG is doing it ensures the maximum chaos.