Was abolishing the half penny in 1857 a good idea? If so, then abolishing the quarter would be a good idea today. It has about as much buying power as the half penny did in 1857.
Yeah, but honestly getting rid of coins is an admission that inflation is high relative to 40-50 years ago. When pretty much every government wants to keep that fact out of the public consciousness. Especially the current US government who wants to both claim we don’t have inflation at all, and are the ones getting rid of the penny.
I’ve been saying we should drop the penny for almost 2 decades, but I still kind of look at getting rid of the penny as a sign of our current government’s abysmal handling of inflation.
So I don’t know the term for it, maybe it’s just propaganda, but a quarter feels like it has value.
The penny however doesn’t have that feeling. Vending machines often say “No Pennies” and toll booths say “No Pennies”, even though the Penny exists everyone sorta already agreed the Penny wasn’t worth the hassle.
I think you could probably convince people the same is true for the nickel. Although eliminating just the nickel is tricky since you’d keep the dime and quarter and that divides weirdly. So you should also remove the dime but that now really starts to feel like it had value.
But the quarter. That would be a hard sell. You’re basically eliminating all coins at that point. Unless you plan on making the half dollar wayyy more popular.
When we got rid of the half penny it was worth more than what dimes are worth now. Quarters are the only useful coin. We should be rounding all transactions to the nearest quarter.
Just dimes would probably work logically, but it would feel too weird. If you’re going just dimes, you probably just want to go all in and say no coins.
50 cent piece would be the way to go. Should then also really push $1 coins, and add in a $2 and $5 coin, although I don’t know if Americans would realistically use them. Coins are much more durable than paper currency though, which would save a lot of money long term
I mean the dollar coin never caught on. I know we still printed the dollar bill, so maybe you could force it by halting the dollar bill. But overall I don’t think new coins are the answer.
Based on one source, Cash is only ~20% of transactions. Maybe it will always be 20% or maybe it will be smaller and smaller as time goes on.
I think you’re better off eliminating current coins.
I feel like we should be normalizing $1, $2, and $5 coins at this point. I know $1 coins exist, but nobody uses them. If I drop a $1 coin in a tip jar, people say sarcastically “thanks, that 25 cents will go a long way” because they think it’s a quarter.
Canada was a decade ahead of the US when it came to implementing tap. It’ll take the US a long while to get to the same level of universal acceptance, starting from so far behind
Abolishing the USD cent comes way too late.
Was abolishing the half penny in 1857 a good idea? If so, then abolishing the quarter would be a good idea today. It has about as much buying power as the half penny did in 1857.
Yeah, but honestly getting rid of coins is an admission that inflation is high relative to 40-50 years ago. When pretty much every government wants to keep that fact out of the public consciousness. Especially the current US government who wants to both claim we don’t have inflation at all, and are the ones getting rid of the penny.
I’ve been saying we should drop the penny for almost 2 decades, but I still kind of look at getting rid of the penny as a sign of our current government’s abysmal handling of inflation.
So I don’t know the term for it, maybe it’s just propaganda, but a quarter feels like it has value.
The penny however doesn’t have that feeling. Vending machines often say “No Pennies” and toll booths say “No Pennies”, even though the Penny exists everyone sorta already agreed the Penny wasn’t worth the hassle.
I think you could probably convince people the same is true for the nickel. Although eliminating just the nickel is tricky since you’d keep the dime and quarter and that divides weirdly. So you should also remove the dime but that now really starts to feel like it had value.
But the quarter. That would be a hard sell. You’re basically eliminating all coins at that point. Unless you plan on making the half dollar wayyy more popular.
When we got rid of the half penny it was worth more than what dimes are worth now. Quarters are the only useful coin. We should be rounding all transactions to the nearest quarter.
Logically I completely agree. I just don’t think you could convince the US as a whole that’s the way to go.
Should just have dimes.
$1.1 $1.2 $1.3
There’s no reason to break our currency into thousandths. Hardly a reason to break it into hundredths.
Could keep quarters to keep hundredths
Transactions already need a nickel to do 5 cents. So requiring a quarter to do 5 cents isn’t crazy.
Say you have to pay $1.05
Dollar and 3 dimes, quarter in change.
$1.15
Dollar and a quarter, dime in change.
But I think just dimes are needed
Just dimes would probably work logically, but it would feel too weird. If you’re going just dimes, you probably just want to go all in and say no coins.
50 cent piece would be the way to go. Should then also really push $1 coins, and add in a $2 and $5 coin, although I don’t know if Americans would realistically use them. Coins are much more durable than paper currency though, which would save a lot of money long term
I mean the dollar coin never caught on. I know we still printed the dollar bill, so maybe you could force it by halting the dollar bill. But overall I don’t think new coins are the answer.
Based on one source, Cash is only ~20% of transactions. Maybe it will always be 20% or maybe it will be smaller and smaller as time goes on.
I think you’re better off eliminating current coins.
Paper dollars make no sense either.
I feel like we should be normalizing $1, $2, and $5 coins at this point. I know $1 coins exist, but nobody uses them. If I drop a $1 coin in a tip jar, people say sarcastically “thanks, that 25 cents will go a long way” because they think it’s a quarter.
Canada has $1 and $2 coins, but it’s all irrelevant as 99% of transactions are digital tap cards.
Canada was a decade ahead of the US when it came to implementing tap. It’ll take the US a long while to get to the same level of universal acceptance, starting from so far behind