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Look, the Mint has one job, to make money. If it's losing money, it doesn't make cents. :P

But, while coins are durable, the Mint has been making billions of pennies every year since the 1950s, and yet retailers have trouble sourcing enough pennies to make change. They do tend not to be recirculated, even if they're not disposable.



> Look, the Mint has one job, to make money. If it's losing money, it doesn't make cents. :P

I realize this is a joke but again, my objection is that this is the actual reason given.

> But, while coins are durable, the Mint has been making billions of pennies every year since the 1950s, and yet retailers have trouble sourcing enough pennies to make change. They do tend not to be recirculated, even if they're not disposable.

These are all better reasons than the one we were given.


> These are all better reasons than the one we were given.

Explaining that it costs 4c to make a 1c coin is a pretty clear and solid justification. People know that producing a physical unit of currency should cost considerably less than its face value, and if not, it's a huge problem.

Complaining that one news article, which is just reporting a current event, doesn't give you an in-depth background analysis and context, is absurd. If you care about a topic enough to want that level of in-depth, you can go look for it elsewhere.

CNN pointed me this NYT article: https://archive.is/Ek38I


> Explaining that it costs 4c to make a 1c coin is a pretty clear and solid justification.

It’s really not though, for the reasons I described already.

> Complaining that one news article, which is just reporting a current event, doesn't give you an in-depth background analysis and context, is absurd.

Well then it’s good that I didn’t do that.

> If you care about a topic enough to want that level of in-depth, you can go look for it elsewhere.

Like the HN comment section?

Trump himself said:

> For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!

That certainly sounds like the reason is production cost and not any of the compelling reasons you have provided.




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