By Chad DouglasMonday, July 17, 2006 at 11:48 a.m.
You hear a lot of talk these days about doing away with the penny.
It now costs more than a cent to make a penny which has fueled the fire to end production.
Whether or not the penny goes away may not be decided for awhile, but while the government looks at the issue, we take a look at what the penny means to us.
"The average person has a thousand pennies in their home and don't even know where they are," Gretchen McGee with First Bankers Trust said.
In fact, nearly 60 percent of pennies find their way out of circulation.
That begs the question: does getting rid of the penny make sense? How would things change?
"If we get rid of the penny, everything is going to be rounded to the nearest nickel," McGee said.
"Pricing would remain the same. When the person totalled their order...for example...if the total was $10.72, the total would be rounded down to $10.70. If it's $10.73, it would be rounded up to $10.75."
Gallagher says early on, pricing wouldn't change much because taxes could make the total an odd number. And he says expect the same rounding system for gas prices.
"It's not going to change the price of a gallon of gas. The market will still move by pennies...that will lead to no effect on how people price gas," Gallagher said.
"I think more men would like to see pennies go away than women because they don't want them in their pocket. Women have heavy purses anyway," Gretchen McGee said.
And charities like pennies. Many of them have campaigns asking you to save your pennies to raise money for their cause, because we all know a penny saved is a penny earned.
All the talk about getting rid of the penny is just talk.
Even if it comes true, no one knows when it would happen.
President Bush has ordered four new designs for the penny beginning in 2009.
You hear a lot of talk these days about doing away with the penny.
It now costs more than a cent to make a penny which has fueled the fire to end production.
Whether or not the penny goes away may not be decided for awhile, but while the government looks at the issue, we take a look at what the penny means to us.
"The average person has a thousand pennies in their home and don't even know where they are," Gretchen McGee with First Bankers Trust said.
In fact, nearly 60 percent of pennies find their way out of circulation.
That begs the question: does getting rid of the penny make sense? How would things change?
"If we get rid of the penny, everything is going to be rounded to the nearest nickel," McGee said.
"Pricing would remain the same. When the person totalled their order...for example...if the total was $10.72, the total would be rounded down to $10.70. If it's $10.73, it would be rounded up to $10.75."
Gallagher says early on, pricing wouldn't change much because taxes could make the total an odd number. And he says expect the same rounding system for gas prices.
"It's not going to change the price of a gallon of gas. The market will still move by pennies...that will lead to no effect on how people price gas," Gallagher said.
"I think more men would like to see pennies go away than women because they don't want them in their pocket. Women have heavy purses anyway," Gretchen McGee said.
And charities like pennies. Many of them have campaigns asking you to save your pennies to raise money for their cause, because we all know a penny saved is a penny earned.
All the talk about getting rid of the penny is just talk.
Even if it comes true, no one knows when it would happen.
President Bush has ordered four new designs for the penny beginning in 2009.
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