Penny Shortage Leaves Retailers Across America Scrambling To Make Change

A penny saved may be a penny earned, but what if you can’t find a penny in the first place?Across America, retailers are complaining about a shortage of the once ubiquitous copper coins, which they say is forcing them to undercharge cash customers and absorb the loss or resort to other workarounds.“You’re talking about losing up to four cents for every cash transaction across multiple stores across the country,” the senior director of government relations with the National Retail Federation,Dylan Jeon, told BBC News. “It’s unsustainable.”The shortage is a consequence of President Trump’s decision earlier this year to halt production of the one-cent coins, which were costing almost four cents apiece to produce.“That’s government waste, plain and simple. The penny no longer makes cents,” Mr. Trump punned on social media when he made the announcement in February.The U.S. Mint placed its final order for penny blanks in May and officially stopped producing new pennies in August. Two months later, the impact is beginning to be felt at cash registers across the country.“Following the discontinuation of pennies nationwide, some McDonald’s locations may not be able to provide exact change,” reads a statement to McDonald’s USA customers that the company shared with the Texas-based media group Nexstar.“We have a team actively working on long-term solutions to keep things simple and fair for customers. This is an issue affecting all retailers across the country, and we will continue to work with the federal government to obtain guidance on this matter going forward.”In the meantime, resourceful retailers are coming up with a variety of workarounds to try to protect their profit margins without offending customers.Giant Eagle, a Pennsylvania-based grocery chain, announced a one-day event this weekend in which it is offering customers two cents on a gift card for every penny they turn in, according to CBS News Pittsburgh.The same outlet reported that Sheetz Convenience Stores is offering a free soda to anyone who pays for a purchase with a dollar’s worth of pennies.Other retailers are simply encouraging customers to use credit or debit cards, or rounding up or down to the nearest nickel. Banks, meanwhile, have begun rationing their dwindling supplies of the one-cent coins by saving them for their high-volume customers.Despite the angst, there are reasons to believe the risks inherent in a penny shortage are manageable. Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand all have done away with their one-cent coins without sparking rebellion or economic collapse.In Canada, where the last penny was minted in 2012, some initial confusion at the cash register was reported, but most residents adapted quickly. Cash transactions are routinely rounded up or down to the nearest nickel while electronic transactions remain exact.More than a decade later, according to the website blog.colonialacres.com, “Most people have forgotten that the Canadian penny ever existed.”

Penny Shortage Leaves Retailers Across America Scrambling To Make Change

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