Penny Protest

Greg Mankiw:

My regular readers know that I favor eliminating the penny, and that Barack Obama is sympathetic to the idea. Professor Robert Whaples of Wake Forest alerts me to a blog posting that suggests the following:

Retailers should simply round down the total checkout tally for cash purchasers and not handle pennies at all. There will be no need for pennies in change and anyone who wants to use pennies to pay, can put them in a charity jar instead. The first retailer to do this will reap a PR bonanza and others will quickly follow. Within a couple of years, retailers who don’t round down will be as rare as those who don’t accept credit cards. Not getting pennies in change, like being able to pay with credit cards, will be considered a birthright.

And then later in the comments section the following update is added:

Concord Teacakes found this posting and is going to DO IT.

In Concord, MA (The birthplace of Civil Disobedience), on February 12 (LIncoln’s 200th birthday) they are going to refuse pennies, starting at (time subject to change) 9:00 AM. Be there — it’s opposite the West Concord train station.