CHEYENNE - In the 1930s during the Great Depression, one song was very popular.
“Pennies from Heaven,” (it was later made into a movie) was one of those ballads intended to lift people from their very real depression over an economy that provided zero jobs.
“Be sure that your umbrella is upside down,” the lyrics said.
“Penny for your thoughts,” was another phrase in wide use in that period.
“Watch your pennies” was as well; an admonition for careful spending.
The little brown copper coins with Abraham Lincoln’s profile on one side were valued then.
One penny could buy a kid some candy. Ten could buy a quart of milk or a loaf of bread.
Many kids had ceramic piggy banks to hold their pennies.
But, no more. In today’s economy it would take 500 pennies to buy a cup of latte coffee at Starbuck’s.
That weighty transaction conjures up the old newsreel images of German women after World War I carrying their almost worthless money in wheelbarrows to buy food.
If you read history, you know what happened in Germany as a result
Not to worry.
In the U.S., life and the economy move on.
The penny is dead.
The federal government stopped making pennies on Nov. 12 in Philadelphia last year because they cost too much and had lost their buying power; they no longer had relevance in the nation’s current financial system.
A penniless society does cause some difficulties.
In a business world without pennies, how do vendors handle the cents of transactions without them?
According to comments during a recent Joint Revenue
Committee meeting, it’s up to the vendor.
There is a wild west solution which is whatever the vendor chooses to do. Then there is the simple up or down solution; if a cash purchase total is under five cents, the charge is five cents; if more than that it is ten cents.
To get a complete and accurate report of the work of the Revenue Committee, read the account by the Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland.
This is not an emergency.
Still with us, the penny will not vanish for a while longer.
There are an estimated 250 billion pennies in circulation.
Hence, the business owners, the vendors, need a way to round out transactions to the nearest nickel when dealing with cash.
Where are your pennies?. Mine are in a large cup filled with small change — or in the bottom of my purse.
What we as citizens need, is direction on what to do with them.
Next for extinction is the nickel. During the Great Depression, a nickel would buy you a candy bar or a ticket on a city bus to ride anywhere in town.
That coin is also doomed.
According to the U.S. Mint’s annual reports, the cost to produce and distribute a single 5-cent coin was 11.54 cents in 2023, 13.78 cents in 2024, and 13.31 cents in 2025.
Every nickel struck in those three years lost the government more than its own face value, twice over, according to internet sources.
Next will be the dime, that tiny, shiny, pesky piece of currency.
That will leave the quarter.
Will we miss the pennies or the nickel? No.
It is all part of the government’s plan.
Contact Joan Barron at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net
