Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
Yes.<p>Canada stopped producing pennies in the fall of 2012. [0]
The sky didn't fall.
There was no great debate, no public opinion polls and politicians swearing heartily about the demise of our great nation. (Ok that's probably not true.  For too many politicians that's all they do.)<p>There was resistance when Canada dropped the $1 bill in favour of a Loonie (a $1 coin with the image of a loon on it).  People bitched about having too much change in there pocket, pockets became too heavy, etc.  I do however see more coins in tip & donation jars now then I ever saw paper money.<p>This is a key difference between US policy & Canadian policy that I have informally noticed while growing up on the border (with family ties on both sides).<p>Canadian government:  We think it's a good idea, so we're going to do it.<p>US Government: Lets have more opinion polls, and countless politicians swearing against any decent public reform or change to the status quo.  Watch the media whip the public up into a frenzy.  I guaranty that this will create a more frantic response and airtime then the BLM & Police Reform protests did.<p>Side note: If you drop the penny, for the love of $diety change your sales tax structure so that it's a multiple of 5.   5%, 10%, 15%, etc...  Since Canada changed but left the taxes the same (14% in Ontario IIRC) there seems to be a lot of rounding-off in favour of companies instead of consumers.
$0.01-$0.02 per transaction * millions of transactions per day has got to make some accountants happy.<p>[0]<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-s-penny-withdrawal-all-you-need-to-know-1.1174547" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-s-penny-withdrawal-all...</a>