Because of the zinc industry. Pennies are the number one users of zinc and if the US stopped production, jobs and blah, blah, blah would be lost. Same thing with the nickel and the nickel industry. The government loves pumping money into hemorrhaging businesses. Look at or banks and airlines for more examples.
I thought it would be an interesting idea if people could sell their pennies back to the government. It costs, what, two cents to make a one-cent coin? What if you could sell back pennies at, say, $1.25 for every hundred pennies? People will make a tiny bit of profit (or a lot, if they collect thousands of pennies), and the government won't lose as much money as before. Then my dad explained to me how the main cause for the extra cost is that distribution is included in the price to make a penny, so buying back pennies wouldn't really save money unless they were bought back at less than the cost to physically make a penny, which is either less than or close enough to one cent that a deal wouldn't really make sense.
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