Abolish The Penny Summary

In the article Abolish the Penny by William Sapphire, a former speechwriter for Nixon tells us his opinion on the penny being abolished. He had a very strong passion towards it being abolished and quite frankly, I agree with him too. I agree with the abolish the penny article because there is nothing that we can buy with the penny, America has nostalgia when it comes to traditions, and As Sapphire puts it "you can't buy anything with a penny anymore. Penny candy? Not for sale at the five-and-dime (which is now a ''dollar store''). Penny-ante poker? Pass the buck. Any vending machine? Put a penny in and it will sound an alarm." What he is saying is today a penny is virtually worth nothing, but when it was first created, it was worth what a quarter is to us today. Nobody ever asks for a penny back or much less cares if it falls out of their pocket. He also talks about penny cups that are next to the register to save the seller time and the buyer the inconvenience of lugging around loose change around. The penny is so worthless that the stores are willing to forget about It when your checking out or just pay for it themselves …show more content…
Although the penny costs more to make than what it's worth, we continue to produce it. "U.S. Mint keeps churning out a billion pennies a month. Where do they go? Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or …behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers... Quarters and dimes circulate; pennies disappear because they are literally more trouble than they are worth." as Sapphire states. We are spending billions of dollars a year to keep the penny rather than just letting it go. Not to mention we are one of the last nations to abolish low denomination coins, even Britain and France abolished theirs over 30 years