The penny is no longer being minted for circulation, leaving businesses and consumers across the country to adapt as the iconic coin\u2019s era ends. The U.S. Mint officially struck its final penny in November, citing rising manufacturing costs, nearly four cents per one-cent coin, and changing payment habits.<\/p>\n
The transition poses challenges for cash-using customers and retail businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI prefer to use cash, which is very rare nowadays, and especially with change and pennies,\u201d said customer Christopher Roberts. \u201cQuite often numbers get rounded up. The importance of a penny is misunderstood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not everyone will miss the extra change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like pennies anyway,\u201d shopper Jim D\u2019Angelo said. \u201cThey seem to be more of a nuisance … or you\u2019re carrying all that extra change around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local grocery chains such as Price Chopper and Market 32 are adjusting: as armored cars stop delivering pennies, the stores won\u2019t be able to provide them in change much longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recently are not receiving pennies from our armored car service, so we will no longer be getting pennies in,\u201d said Michele McKeever, the company\u2019s director of customer service.<\/p>\n
To sweeten the transition, Price Chopper is doubling penny exchanges, offering a $20 gift card for every $10 in pennies customers bring in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some shoppers, like Debra Vincent, plan to hold onto their pennies, hoping they\u2019ll become collectors\u2019 items. Meanwhile, Stewart\u2019s Shops has adopted a \u201cround up for you\u201d model: if you\u2019re owed one penny, you\u2019ll get a nickel, turning small change into small perks.<\/p>\n
For now, businesses will keep accepting pennies, encouraging people to spend what\u2019s left in circulation. But as supplies dwindle, many anticipate a gradual shift toward rounding and more digital transactions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a larger supermarket, I\u2019ll probably pull out my card where normally I would pull out cash to avoid the inconvenience,\u201d said Roberts.<\/p>\n
The end of penny production marks a significant change in American cash culture; how it truly impacts day-to-day life will become clearer as the last of the pennies trickle out of registers and pockets.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The penny is no longer being minted for circulation, leaving businesses and consumers across the country to adapt…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":379787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[40737,5229,59713,64,40736,405,403,17050,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":{"0":"post-379786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-albany-capital-region","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-app-local-business","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-corey-james","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-state","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-vod"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115551523570097850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}