Nickalaus Luger

Comm 1020
Jodie Jones
11/8/2016
WORKSHEET FOR SPEECH OUTLINE
Title: My two cents.
Speaker: Nickalaus Luger
Specific Purpose: My audience will be persuaded that the United States no longer needs
pennies, and the country should stop making them.
Thesis statement: It is time for the United States to stop making pennies.
I.

We generally think of pennies as being made of copper, however roughly 35 years

ago the price of copper began to out value the worth of the pennies. People were
actually melting them down and selling the raw copper for a profit. Logically, that
should have been the end of pennies right there. However, the United States
governments response was to start making pennies out of Zinc, because its cheaper.
Which makes some sense, but due to inflation were to the point where even Zinc, the
cheapest metal we can make coins out of, costs more than the penny were making.

II.

Establish Ethos: My name is Nickalaus Luger, and Im tired of pennies.

III.

Thematic Statement: Today Im going to show you why its time for the United States
to stop making them.

IV.

Im going to tell you why waste more time than they are worth, why they have no
virtually no utility, and talk about the Rounding tax, that some pro-penny advocates
are afraid of.

Transition How much time do pennies waste?

Body
I. Personal finance educational website, Moneycrashers.com claims that based on the average
American wage, that the penny is only worth 2 seconds of time.

A. If you take 5 seconds to pick up a penny, you earned less than minimum wage
($7.20 an hour)
B. Studies show that pennies add an average of 2 seconds to every transaction,
and with 316 million consumers in the country making an estimated 23 cash transactions
per month, the United States wastes 48 million hours per year on counting pennies alone.
1. and thats just consumers,
II.
According to the United States Mint Annual Report, production costs for making pennies
have been at a loss for the last 10 years in a row,
A.

Once again, just like when they were made of copper, it costs more to
make a penny, than the penny is worth. Currently its 1.4 cents to make
one, but in 2011 the cost reached a high of 2.4 cents per penny made.
1. In 2014, the U.S Mint spent $55 million on making pennies alone.

[Transition/Internal summary But hey, they are getting reused over and over, right? So really
its not that bad, pennies last forever.
II.
Wrong. Since they arent even worth the time it takes to count them, pennies tend to sit in
jars and they are not even accepted as money in a lot of places.
A.
Vending machines, toll booths, parking meters, have you ever tried buying your
groceries with $20 in pennies?
1.

$20 in pennies weighs 11 pounds. Its not going make anyone very happy.

B.
More than that, a lot of people just literally throw them away. Thats how I was
raised. Because of this, its not surprising that more of these worthless coins must be made per
year than every other coin combined.
1.
Economist and professor at Harvard, Greg Kankiw has a great quote about
pennies, The purpose, of the monetary system is to facilitate exchange, but the
penny no longer serves that purpose. When people start leaving a monetary unit at
the cash register for the next person, the unit is too small to be useful.
[Transition/Internal Summary] But what do the penny advocates say?
III.

They fear a rounding tax

A.
Pro-penny advocate group Americans for Common sense argue that prices will
inflate, and poor people will lose money on each transaction due to prices being rounded up.
They call it a rounding tax
1.
Robert Whaples at Wake Forest University actually did a study; he
observed 20,000 transactions from 20 locations across 7 states where they
rounded to the nearest 5 cents focusing only on cash transactions.
2.
What he found is that the based on current prices, the consumer actually
gains 1/40th of a cent per transaction
3. It would take 40 transactions to make one penny difference, which is virtually
nothing.
4. The only time he found the consumer would lose money consistently, is if they
pay cash prices for an item less than a dollar that ends in 9. Which is very, very
rare.
[Transition/Internal Summary] Removing a coin from circulation is not a new thing.
Conclusion:
I.

Canada did it 2012, New Zealand actually rounds to the nearest 10 cents, and even
the United States removed the half penny from circulation in 1857 (which when
removed had the buying power of 14 pennies today) According to the inflation
calculator at Measuringworth.com

II.

So now that you know how useless pennies are, from the amount of time wasted, to
their lack of utility, and the unfounded arguments of penny lovers,

III.

You can see why its time for the United States to finally stop making pennies, and
take them out of circulation.

IV.

And remember, A nickel saved, is a nickel earned.