A few weeks ago I wrote about my experience living in a place where US purchases were made without pennies (here it is, if you missed it). Prices were rounded up or down to the nearest nickel, which is why I called it “Americans are going to have to learn to calculate multiples of 5.”
That seems the obvious response to a penny-less world, but apparently it’s not entirely obvious, as this New Hampshire Bulletin story notes. Some places, it seems, want to round everything up.
A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers have proposed legislation in the U.S. House and Senate to require all cash transactions be rounded to the nearest five cents, but neither proposal has made it to a floor vote.
Complicating the issue are the growing number of jurisdictions requiring businesses to accept cash — a move aimed at protecting vulnerable consumers who may not have access to credit cards or electronic payment systems.
Return to the Concord Monitor
I don’t recall ever having to spend or make change for something involving a fraction of a cent: the penny is the lowest denominator. If the nickel becomes the lowest denominator, then pricing is simply based on that. No issue at all for people just using cash. Sure, some prices will rise, and some may fall, based on what price setters determine is optimal, but prices fluctuate anyway.
It seems to me the problem is just in our head. It’s a matter of common sense, not cents.
The 1 and 2 cent coins were discontinued in Australia some time ago. But, businesses are still free to price goods in single cents for example $1.99 each . So if you buy three of them, the price is$5.97. If you pay by card, that is all you pay. If you pay with cash, the rounding up/down issue remains.
I was living in England on February 15, 1971 when the UK money went from the pounds/shilling/pence designation (12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound) to their current decimal currency. Complicating the conversion was a countrywide post office strike that was to deliver educational material about the conversion. It took the public about three days to adjust to the conversion.
My conclusion was that when money is involved, people will adjust quickly. Please, no legislation. People will adjust without any government “help.”
In NH we are lucky not to have a sales tax, well there is the room and meals tax, so there is addition to your restaurant tab. And if you get a ready to eat item at the grocery store there’s a tax added there too. So even if prices are set to multiples of 5, unless sales taxes are also set to a multiple of 5, that’s not an adequate solution.