Penny Abolition Debate

The cluster discusses eliminating the US penny and other small coins like nickels and dimes, citing production costs, handling inconveniences, and examples from countries like Australia, New Zealand, and the EU that have abolished them with rounding to nearest 5 cents.

➡️ Stable 1.1x Finance & Crypto
3,170
Comments
19
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#7332
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2008
14
2009
39
2010
146
2011
90
2012
130
2013
76
2014
108
2015
84
2016
69
2017
214
2018
192
2019
125
2020
301
2021
208
2022
187
2023
341
2024
243
2025
589
2026
14

Keywords

nederlandsemunten.nl US MOD5 IMO CZK B00U7YLKNU amazon.com INSERT ycombinator.com EU pennies coins penny coin nickel cent nearest dollar rid cents

Sample Comments

jhoechtl Jan 12, 2017 View on HN

Whats wrong with using pennies?

Aramgutang Jun 25, 2011 View on HN

We don't need to "imagine" not being able to divide up money past the 5 cent barrier. Here in Australia, pennies have been abolished and everything is either rounded up or down to the nearest 5 cents.New Zealand has already taken it one step further and has abolished 5-cent coins as well, rounding everything to the nearest 10. There's talk of doing that in Australia as well.Keep in mind that the Aussie dollar is worth more than a US one, and Kiwi dollar is worth only 20% less, so we're tal

deafpolygon Nov 12, 2025 View on HN

we don’t have “pennies” in the EU anymore

guhcampos Dec 3, 2019 View on HN

Pennies (or any equivalents) are not the smallest unit in any currency. Fractions of it are perfectly acceptable and even common.

whimsicalism Nov 12, 2025 View on HN

i think ~5 cents per capita is a fine price to pay to never have to think about pennies again

bryanlarsen Jan 6, 2025 View on HN

Rely on what that couldn't be better served by $1 coins?

aidenn0 Jan 8, 2026 View on HN

I would have gotten rid of nickels and dimes; then everything is priced in 1/4 dollars.

z0r Sep 15, 2010 View on HN

Abolish the penny, use a uniform rounding rule to make the nickel the smallest denomination. I hate pennies.

coronadisaster Jul 20, 2020 View on HN

get rid of at least the pennies, nickles and dimes (because the dimes are just too small)

FartyMcFarter Jul 14, 2020 View on HN

I guess it's easier to kill the penny than to divide all prices by a factor of 2.