The U.S. penny has become not only obsolete, but also a burden on American citizens. It is past time that Congress legislates out of existence this holdover from past centuries.

The U.S. Treasury loses money on each penny it mints. The U.S. minted about eight billion pennies in 2006. The value of just the metal in a penny often exceeds its face value, depending on the fluctuating price of zinc and copper. Adding in the costs of minting, labor, and transportation, the U.S. Mint loses about 2.5 cents on each penny it makes, which means about $200 million per year lost by the U.S. Treasury. The government really is the only agency that can put work into an object and make it worth less.

If the Treasury stops minting pennies, it recoups these losses and will also benefit from economies of scale with the printing of other coins. The Treasury will be able to buy more of the same machines and metals to produce nickels, dimes, and quarters. One of the most fundamentals tenets of any transaction is that buying and manufacturing in bulk reduces cost—not only will money be saved by eliminating the wasteful production of pennies, but also by the increased production of other coins in its place.

The penny is a unit of worth that is out of place in today’s economy. One cent is essentially valueless now; the original denomination of the penny was set long before the woes of inflation. In 1857, when the Treasury stopped minting the half-cent coin, the penny took on its role as the runt of the litter. Because of inflation, a penny in 1857 is worth more than twenty-two cents as of this May. Currently, a nickel is worth what a penny was worth just thirty-five years ago. Considering the U.S. has had the penny as its lowest coin denomination for 150 years, I believe that the nickel deserves its shot at being the most worthless coin in America (well, except for a Canadian quarter).

Most people probably have a hard time judging how little a penny is worth. The clearest way to understand the worth of a penny is in terms of time. Someone earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 earns a penny in less than seven seconds. In the time it takes to pull a penny out of your pocket, you could have in fact earned a penny. By paying with a penny, you actually lose two pennies.

An even more damning argument exists against pennies, however: They are the only legal tender in America capable of annoying you. How many times have you heard in a restaurant or store, “Wait, let me get rid of this change!” Even the stingiest of consumers would happily contribute all of his change to a check. In what parallel universe would somebody actively seek to rid himself of money? Besides just wanting to get rid of pennies, no one really wants them in the first place. If you use more than five or six pennies at a time to pay for something, you will as likely as not be glared at: no one else wants your worthless has-been currency.

The social stigma and physical nuisance of using pennies prevents them from being circulated. The reason for this is that consumers receive pennies as change from businesses, but spend them at a much slower rate than they amass them; therefore, business need to continuously buy pennies from banks for change. To a lesser extent this same phenomenon happens with nickels and dimes, while bills and quarters more or less constantly circulate. This disequilibrium in the flow of pennies increases the number of pennies in circulation, and the problems previously discussed are just continually augmented in this manner.

Now I’m not claiming that phasing out the penny would solve America’s financial problems, or that this is one of our world’s pressing matters. And solving it is not just as easy as destroying the penny mints—our sales tax and culture of marketing goods at $X.99, for example, are both reliant on the one-cent denomination. But such obstacles are no justification for us to keep doing a stupid thing.