The U.S. Department of Treasury has confirmed that the penny will be phased out of use beginning in 2026.
Pennies will remain as legal tender, according to the Wall Street Journal, who first reported the decision, which is fortunate for those with coins piling in the cupholders of their car.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department confirmed to USA Today that the federal government put in its final order of pennies last month.
As the minting process stops and the coins are phased out, businesses will be instructed to round their change up or down five cents to accommodate the anticipated discrepancy for cash payments.
Many locally-owned businesses in Traverse City are unanimous in their opinions: the penny needed to go.
Kyle Delgado, manager of Golden Shoes, said that it's financially responsible to phase the penny out of the monetary system, referencing that it costs nearly four cents to produce a single penny.
As the shoe store’s average ticket price is fairly high, Delgado said that an extra nickel added to their prices is not going to impact its customer base too heavily.
“There is going to be probably a little bit of probably a little bit of math we will have to do on our end, as far as adjusting what things cost and rounding,” Delgado said. “I think the difference between now and when they finally phase it out is going to be so microscopic. I don't even think it's going to make a huge impact at all.”
Some business owners, such as Peter Makin, owner of Brilliant Books, are passionate about the penny’s eventual demise.
“People don't really care about the pennies,” Makin said. “Nobody wants 96 cents in change, so we don't give them that. We'll literally give them a dollar and then just take four cents, you know, out of the penny jar.”
He said that while the penny is phased out, the nickel may as well be too, costing nearly 14 cents to produce.
“I think they should phase out both at once, because then people have only one time to get used to it,” he said. “Otherwise, get used to pennies, then in a few years' time they get used to nickels.”
Makin joked that it costs him more money to pay his employees to count the pennies in the cash register than the coins are actually worth.
Stacey Popp is the owner of Dairy Lodge, a cash-only ice cream shop that has been family-owned since 1958, according to its Facebook Page.
Despite only accepting cash payments, Popp said that the shop does not encounter a lot of pennies, as the menu prices are already rounded to the nearest five cents.
Though Popp also views pennies as a waste of money to produce, she said that she runs a cash business for a reason: to see physical money stick around.
“I have people ask me when I’m going to get Venmo or something, and I say never,” she said. “I really don’t want to see cash go away.”
Abigail Fraass, employee of Rocket Fizz Soda Pop & Candy Shop, said that pennies will not be leaving their shop any time soon.
“For candy, if you're just buying one or two things, you're a lot more likely to have a smaller transaction and use those pennies,” Fraass said.
When the time comes for the shop to round their change, Frass said she believes the shop’s customers may get upset about their change being rounded down.
“If it's only two cents that you're getting back, a lot of people don't want that because they don't want change,” she said. “But if you're getting a lot of change back, like sometimes it's almost a dollar in change, you don't want to be shorted out on that.”
