With abolishing the penny front-page news, we asked consumers what they thought.
Abolishing the penny is in the headlines, but is it an issue important to customers? The latest NACS / Bold Decision Consumer Survey, fielded February 3-6, asked how consumers felt about the issue.
Without hearing an explanation for why the penny should be abolished, only about one in three consumers (36%) said they were in favor of eliminating the penny, and only 15% were strongly in favor of it.
However, consumer sentiment changed when reasons were offered. News stories over the past month have focused on two reasons for it: cost and convenience. Elon Musk, and later President Trump, cited cost savings, noting that it cost more than three cents to produce the penny.
The other consideration is speed of service, an important factor for convenience stores, which excel in providing fast transactions. Approximately one in three transactions (33.2%) in a convenience store are cash, according to the NACS State of the Industry Report of 2023 Data. (2024’s numbers will be revealed at the upcoming NACS State of the Industry Summit, which takes place April 8-10 in Dallas.)
A few weeks ago, a CNN story cited a 2020 quote from NACS Vice President of Media & Strategic Communications Jeff Lenard about speed of service: “If we save every one of our (52 million cash-paying) customers two seconds… that’s 1,203 days. And that doesn’t factor in time compounding—saving two seconds for the other people waiting in line before they get to pay. That’s some serious productivity.”
Consumers were more persuaded by the cost-savings argument than the time-savings argument.
How compelling do you find these messages to support eliminating the penny:
Message | At least somewhat | Very |
The cost to produce a penny is more than 3 cents | 73% | 43% |
Pennies often wind up unused and stored around the house | 72% | 34% |
Most people rarely use pennies | 66% | 33% |
Pennies slow down transactions in stores | 52% | 24% |
Several countries have eliminated the penny, including Canada, which stopped minting it in 2012. All Canadian retailers round the transaction to the nearest nickel (higher or lower) for those paying by cash.
NACS was also featured in the award-winning documentary “Heads Up: When Will We Stop Making Sense?” and the filmmakers were interviewed on the NACS Convenience Matters podcast, “Should the Penny Stay, or Should the Penny Go?”
Beyond the penny, NACS also developed a backgrounder on why gas prices end in 9/10th of a cent.
Comprehensive findings from the latest NACS Consumer Survey, conducted by national public opinion firm Bold Decision, will be in the April 2025 issue of NACS Magazine.
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