The last penny was minted last week, but they’re not going away anytime soon. Something like 300 BILLION are still in circulation.
A writer for “The Atlantic” shared a fun stat: 300 billion means there are likely more pennies in our galaxy than STARS in our galaxy.
Still, the fact that we’re not making more could cause a penny shortage over the holidays if banks can’t kick them out for businesses to use.
A bunch of grocery stores in the Northeast just had a promo where they traded gift cards and paid two cents for every penny you traded in. You could bring in up to $100 worth, or 10,000 pennies, and get a $200 gift card.
With that in mind, how many pennies could YOU trade in right now?
A new poll asked thousands of Americans how many pennies they could come up with if they dug through their change jars and couch cushions. And a third of us think we could at least come up with a buck’s worth.
34% said they have more than 100 pennies floating around, another 34% said less than that, but some, 25% had no idea and couldn’t even guess, and 7% of Americans claim they’re penniless. ZERO pennies in their life.
Most of that no-penny crowd is made up of young people who don’t use a lot of cash in general. Almost half of folks under 30 said they have 20 pennies or less. Just 2% of seniors said the same.
The question moving forward is should we keep them AT ALL? Around a third of Americans think we should just pull pennies out of circulation and round prices up to a nickel.
(YouGov)
