For our whole lives, we have grown up with change. We come in contact with pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters just about every time we’re at the cash register. Fiddling around in your pockets hoping to find a sufficient amount of nickels and pennies in an attempt to make the cashier’s job easier is something I’m sure that we have all done in our lives.

However, don’t you think it would be easier if we were to just abolish the low denomination coins altogether? Countries such as Great Britain and France abandoned low denomination coins thirty years ago and it makes me wonder why our country hasn’t followed suit.Despite their increasing irrelevance, the U.S. Mint continues to produce pennies and nickels.

In a 2016 study, The Wall Street Journal reported that it costs more to produce pennies than they are actually worth. I would like to ask the U.S. Mint why on Earth they continue to produce a coin that isn’t even worth as much as it costs to make it. To produce a penny, it costs 1.43 cents while its worth only stands at one cent. While this number may seem low, imagine what that .43 cents will amount to after the production of hundreds or even thousands of pennies. While the penny issue is bad enough, the nickel, while only worth 5 cents, costs 11.2 cents to produce. This is more than double its worth. The fact that we would continue to produce these boggles my mind.

Besides the production cost, you have to take into account the amount of time Americans spend searching their pockets for loose change. With the combined time that we spend looking for change, we effectively lose around 1 billion dollars a year.

Despite the historical value that pennies and nickels hold in our hearts, their true value is not nearly valuable enough for us to keep them around anymore.