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Contact: Mark Weller
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Poll Shows Americans Concerned About Costly Price Rounding System If Penny Is Eliminated

Washington, DC – A poll released today by Americans for Common Cents shows overwhelming support for the penny by the American public. The vast majority of those surveyed favored keeping the penny in circulation, a sentiment heightened when people were made aware of the penny’s charitable importance, and most expressed significant concerns about higher consumer prices if the penny is eliminated.

“These results confirm the strong and unwavering support the penny continues to receive from America.” said Weller. “Americans understand that eliminating the penny would lead to a rounding process and cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in higher prices. Current and future generations of Americans deserve to live in a country where a penny saved truly is a penny earned.”

The poll results showed that:

    * Three out of four adults (73%) favor keeping the penny in circulation;
    * A mere 12.6% agree the penny should be removed from circulation when people are told that millions of dollars in pennies are contributed to charities each year;
    * 76% were concerned that if the government implements a rounding system for cash purchases, businesses might raise prices;
    * 69% of Americans oppose eliminating the penny and establishing a price rounding system.

An analysis by Raymond Lombra, PhD, Professor of Economics at Penn State University confirms these concerns. He found that eliminating the penny would lead to a rounding of prices in America that he estimates would cost consumers more than $600 million every year.

Polling results over the last eight years demonstrate the widespread support the penny enjoys with the public. Opinion Research polls in 1995 and 1996 found 73% and 76% of Americans, respectively, support the penny. A 1992 CNN/Time survey and a 1990 Gallup poll produced similar favorable results.

“Keeping the penny in circulation will avoid an inflationary rounding process and is what the American people want,” said Weller. “It’s just common cents.”

Americans for Common Cents is a broad-based coalition of business and charitable organizations dedicated to keeping the penny. The coalition was formed in 1990 in response to Congressional threats to eliminate the one-cent coin. Opinion Research Corporation International of Princeton, New Jersey, surveyed a national sample of 1,009 adults, comprised of 507 men and 502 women by phone. The margin of sampling error is +3%.