State lawmakers rush to set rounding rules for when there are no pennies

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: ABC News/AP

March 12, 2026, 12:05 AM


Months after the last of the United States' 1-cent coins were pressed, some states are beginning to offer their own 2 cents on the penny problem by setting rounding guidance for cash purchases. President Donald Trump announced early last year an end to penny production, saying it was wasteful. It cost 3.7 cents to make each 1-cent coin in 2024, according to the U.S. Mint.

The move led to a shortage of pennies in cash registers last summer, forcing consumers and businesses to confront a penniless future in which making exact change would be difficult. The Treasury Department has said it will continue circulating the roughly 114 billion pennies that exist for “as long as possible.” Pennies must still be accepted as payment.

One solution to the penny problem is rounding to the nearest nickel, using a practice called symmetrical rounding. If the final price, after taxes, ends in one, two, six or seven cents, payment in cash rounds down. For example, $1.91 or $1.92 becomes $1.90. If the price ends in three, four, eight or nine, cash payment rounds up. For $1.98 or $1.99, the consumer pays $2.

A bill introduced last year in Congress and passed out of the House financial services committee would apply symmetrical rounding across the country. U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., said in an email the federal law is important to prevent a “confusing patchwork of state policies.” The bill hasn’t been voted on in the House and would still need to move through the U.S. Senate before reaching Trump’s desk.

Read more: https://abcnews.com/Lifestyle/wireStory/state-lawmakers-rush-set-rounding-rules-pennies-130990013

[twodogsbarking]

1. When I do pay cash I tell the clerk to keep the pennies.

[Timewas]

2. Pricing

Why can't they just price everything to the nearest nickel then no "rounding" needed...

[Historic NY]

4. A nickle costs 13.8 cents each

you could make 3 pennies for the price of one nickle.

[70sEraVet]

13. That's true! I looked it up.

It's altogether a crazy system -- it costs more to make the currency than the currency is worth, if you save cash in a bank it becomes worth less than when you first put it in the bank, and you never know from one day to the next what a dollar bill will buy.
And yet we spend so much of our precious lives chasing after it.

[cstanleytech]

18. Depends on how you define cost as the money spent is money that also flows into the economy.

[Blues Heron]

28. But they last decades and get spent countless times. The cost is also offset by how cheap it is to print a 20 buck bill

So to create let’s say $20.01 worth of currency it costs 15 cents maybe

[Timewas]

24. Really?

T he cost of a nickle has nothing to do with pricing to round thigs up or down when they eliminate the penny...It pretty much has always cost more to mint money than it is worth....

[Historic NY]

25. Fractionalize currency has been around since somebody decided sea shells were a problem

various civilizations cut coins (ie. pieces of eight) by dividing, halving, or quartering coins...Of course some coins were minted with silver or gold. Then some discovered they could make a coin by adulterating it with various other metals.

Someday someone is going to invent a new method like debit cards.

[rurallib]

6. I wondered about that also - how do you make the taxes always end in a nickel?

I suppose that could be done easily, but would the taxpayers buy it? Also, remember sales taxes in particular are very regressive.

[Blues Heron]

30. You would have to revalue the currency with nubucks or some such

You would have to redeem all your old cash at a bank for nubucks, which are worth five times the old money.

[IbogaProject]

11. Because of our regressive sales taxes

But sales tax can be embedded in the price in New York State, but I never see that.

[Historic NY]

3. My 2 cents

]

Just announce your putting Trump face on it

[mackdaddy]

5. It seems like they were always rounding up and keeping the extra.

The biggest issue is Sales Tax which makes it difficult to always have the price at some even 5c point.

[rurallib]

7. Can we round it up to a nickel and give that extra to the billionaire class?

They are so needy

[cstanleytech]

19. It honestly would not surprise me if they try doing something like that.

[hay rick]

8. My local McDonald's has adopted nearest nickel for cash transactions.

It's posted on the wall behind the cash registers.

[zeusdogmom]

9. I find it more than pathetic that we need a law to clarify rounding up or down in the marketplace

[Jacson6]

10. 30 Years ago I could buy small resses PB cups for 3 cents. Today if I droped 3 cents no one would pick it up.

It's time to just round everything up to a nickel.

[Journeyman]

12. Yes, but 30 years ago a gum ball cost 2 cents . . .

Are we to get them free now from the pharmacy, when they pay us to take our medications out of store?

[Jacson6]

16. WOT????!!!

[Torchlight]

22. And then a dime. And then a dollar...

[70sEraVet]

14. Our monetary system should be based on something of a tangible value

Not just tangible, but something simple and necessary -- something that would convey a basic sense of COMPASSIONATE value.
Let's say, one dollar equals one dozen eggs; a half-dollar would equal half a dozen eggs, etc. The smallest denomination would be one egg.
The federal minimum wage would always ensure that a worker would be able to feed his family, without having to convince a roomful of Republican lawmakers every few years that it is contrary to a nation's interests to let workers starve.

[slightlv]

15. Did you look closely at the cents that would be rounded up or down?

final price, after taxes, ends in one, two, six or seven cents, payment in cash rounds down

If the price ends in three, four, eight or nine, cash payment rounds up.

While I won't say sales prices always end in a 8 or a 9, I will say I've rarely seen sale prices that end in 2 or 6.

This rounding process is ripe for corruption. Find the most used final number in a sales price, add to that the state/local tax on the item, and you've got a formula for skimming off the top. But then, I'm not "braining" very well today, it seems. Trouble with my eyes and my head is spinning at times.

This just looks like another grift to me...

[Maninacan]

17. Canada

I bet Canada planned ahead and had the laws written beforehand.

[eppur_se_muova]

20. A cent coin is not a commodity, it's a token, like a certificate. It's worth what it is by fiat, not by cost.

Maybe it takes 3.7 cents to make, but it can be used over and over for years before it wears out, participating in many dollars worth of transactions. Discontinuing it because of material costs is a bit short-sighted.

Over the years, the US, and the Colonies before that, have phased out the half-cent, the quarter-cent (aka farthing), the half-farthing, and the quarter-farthing, because they no longer made sense. The cent will eventually go too, but there's no rush. It is part of the basis of our money system, not just our coinage. It seems to me it would have been smarter to issue a 2-cent coin, probably in the same diameter, but thinner, and a different color (at least slightly). Thinner would mean less cost to make. Banks might dislike having to modify their coin sorters, but most people wouldn't be affected. Retail stores would just toss a small box in the pennies bin, and put either the new coins or the old ones in that, until the changeover (no pun intended) ran its course. And rounding to the nearest 2 cents would be less of a problem than rounding to 5 cents.

It's still not too late, either ..... having a shortage of cents might make it easier.

[3825-87867]

21. Next up...that $19.95 thingamabob will be rounded up to

$20.00
And so on an on and on and on...

Oh and don't forget stamps. Just make them $1.00 each and if the maunfacturer price goes up, just ad an "/up by 5" (cents or dollar) to it.
Then let the business keep the left over.

But trumps $99.99 stuff will get an exception for the taxability problem, right?

[Deminpenn]

23. Stores are rounding down, not up

That's is what the local Walmart, Aldi and Home Depot are doing. I have not had any cash purchase round up to the nearest nickel, it's always been down.

[no_hypocrisy]

26. At our store yesterday (NJ), a customer was on the verge of a meltdown

because she refused to go along with the rounding down and wanted her two cents back in change.

That's right. Two pennies.

I had to call my supervisor over to unlock the money box to open it to give her the two cents. She held up the line for five minutes over two cents.

[bucolic_frolic]

29. I've done that before. It's fun in Walmart

They taxed a food item. Who was trying to pocket the tax money? They code things wrong in the UPC system. Not my fault.

[bucolic_frolic]

27. All this nonsense could be avoided if they would only

permit one digit after the decimal point. Because that's what they're doing. Nickels and pennies could all go bye-bye together.

$1.99 becomes $1.9 or $2.0

Then they could smelt the existing nickels and pennies to reclaim the metals.

This is efficient. Throwing the lawyers and bean counters at it is wasteful.

Income tax forms have rounded up or down for 20 years.

The currency is being devalued. Make it legal because it's going to happen anyway.