Despite rising costs and general economic uncertainty, the National Retail Federation is projecting that U.S. holiday spending will exceed $1 trillion this year, which is a record.
That’s anxiety-inducing.
The most stressful part of the holidays is gift buying. I never know what to get for people, and I struggle to determine the appropriate amount of money I should spend on a given gift.
And now everything could get slightly more expensive — even your thoughts — since the penny is being phased out.
The U.S. Treasury Department pressed the final 1-cent pieces on Nov. 12 at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, ending a 232-year run for the coin that started in 1793 when it was first introduced as legal tender through the Coinage Act of 1792.
According to USA Today, “an estimated 300 billion pennies remain in circulation,” so you can still use the copper-coated zinc discs you have strewn across the top of your dresser or filling your vehicle’s ashtray.
After all, the typical lifespan of a coin is 30 years, so pennies aren’t disappearing overnight despite the cessation of production, which means my dreams of owning and wearing stylish penny loafers can live on for now.
If you’re a collector, though, you can buy those final pennies, called “Omega Pennies,” when they are going to be auctioned off on Dec. 11 as commemorative sets, including the original dies used to produce the coins.
Securing the collectable coins will cost a tad more than 1 cent, though. Reporting by Popular Science, experts believe the pennies could cost between $2 to $5 million.
It seems crazy to spend that much for a coin that is worth literally 1 cent, but that’s the reason the penny is being phased out.
According to NPR’s Scott Horsley, the “government decided to stop making new pennies because each one costs nearly 4 cents to produce. The move is expected to save about $56 million a year.”
From a fiscal perspective, then, the decision to phase out the penny makes sense. However, there is concern about what the downstream impacts will be.
University of Rhode Island researcher Nancy Forster-Holt, writing for The Conversation, reported that “local businesses are likely to round cash transactions to the nearest 5 cents. Rounding to the nearest nickel could cost businesses and consumers about $6 million annually.”
This is called a “rounding tax” and would cause consumers to pay more.
On the other hand, in his 2007 article in the Eastern Economic Journal, Wake Forest University professor Robert Whaples argued that the “rounding tax” barely impacted consumers. According to his research, “the total effect on buyers and sellers from rounding current totals to the nearest nickel would be very, very small [. . .] their collective loss is less than $5 per week.”
The Washington Post’s “Post Reports” podcast also suggested that the demise of pennies won’t impact purchases. In the episode, Post White House economic policy correspondent Jacob Bogage discussed Whaples’s research said the study found that the digit at the end of purchase receipts is randomized, meaning the presence or absence of the penny doesn’t matter.
Also, consider what people earn, and the loss of the penny doesn’t seem to matter as much.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average private sector hourly wage in August 2025 was $36.58, making each second of work worth more than 1 cent.
“Do the math to break that down,” Bogage said in the podcast episode. “The most precious currency we all have is time. It is not dollars. It is not cents. It is time. Our time in this case is literally worth more than this piece of currency.”
So rather than stressing over what to buy or how much to spend, maybe the answer is to just spend time with people.
Or, if a person is artistically inclined, make a painting. Though it’s not easy to make a living as an artist, three paintings by famed PBS craftsman Bob Ross were auctioned off on Nov. 11, and they cost a pretty penny. They brought in $662,000 to support public media following this summer’s $1.1 billion cut in federal funding.
An original painting by a loved one is a gift people will cherish for generations, or it could bring in a lot of pennies.
Todd R. Vogts, Ph.D., is a native of Canton, a resident of McPherson County, and a media researcher and educator. He can be contacted with questions or comments via his website at www.toddvogts.com.
