There has never been a coin in circulation in the U.S. worth as little as the penny is worth today.
It costs about 1.7 cents to mint a penny. Even the price of the raw materials it is made of exceeds the face value.
It takes about two seconds to earn one cent. Thus, it is not worthwhile for most people to deal with a penny. If it takes only two seconds extra for each transaction that uses a penny, the cost of time wasted in the U.S. is about $3.65 per person annually, about $1 billion for all US.
Prices would not be higher — Research by Robert Whaples, an economics professor at Wake Forest University, using data on nearly 200,000 transactions from a multi-state convenience store chain shows that rounding would have virtually no effect.
Many countries outside the US removed small coins