Why The U.S. Penny Won't Die Like Canada's Just Did

Poor little guy. Starting in the fall, Canada’s government will stop producing the lowly Canadian penny. The fact that pennies are expensive to make and are virtually worthless in today’s economy led them to fall victim to Ottawa’s budget cuts. The government says the measure will save around $11 million a year because each new penny costs 1.6 Canadian cents to produce. (One Canadian dollar is essentially equal to $1 in the U.S.) And a Canadian penny buys you only about 1/20th of what it could when it was introduced in 1858: A penny that could hypothetically buy a whole loaf of bread then would only buy a few bites of bread now.

Canadian consumers will be able to use the 1¢ coins indefinitely, but the government is encouraging businesses to start rounding to the nearest nickel. Lest people forget their arithmetic lessons, the government has put out a fact sheet on proper rounding techniques.

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