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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

The linked article raises a few problems that the US could have with that solution:

> Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change.

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This seems like a non-issue as long as they round the price down. Because there's no law that the store can't discount their total by a small amount and then provide exact change.

"Congratulations customer, we have a special coupon today for $0.03 off your purchase. Here's your change :)"

I don't see why you couldn't do it in either case. If you modify the actual price, then you are giving exact change. Why wouldn't round() be as valid a price modification as floor()?

Maybe sales tax makes that harder?

I guess you could calculate all of your prices such that, once sales tax is added, they round to a 5 cent value.

You don't need to do that. Compute the total sale, then figure the tax, then round. You don't need to round per item.

Presumably "increase the price a small amount to avoid giving exact change" is exactly the sort of thing that laws requiring giving exact change were designed to prevent.

There will surely be some customer pissed about the extra 2 cents they were charged who will raise hell over the exact change law.

But what customer is going to be upset over a small discount?

> In addition, the law covering the federal food assistance program known as SNAP requires that recipients not be charged more than other customers. Since SNAP recipients use a debit card that’s charged the precise amount, if merchants round down prices for cash purchases, they could be opening themselves to legal problems and fines, said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for NACS.

So how do they account for people who use coupons or rewards cards today? Those create a discount that technically result in charging some customers less than others, including SNAP users. In the case of rounding, you wouldn't be charging SNAP user any more that other users who use cards for payment. The point of the law was to prevent stores from charging surcharges etc on food stamp users back in the day.

Rewards are taken from merchant fees. The retailer isn't party to that rebate. Likewise, coupons are almost always funded by the manufacturer who returns those monies to the store.

"Rewards are taken from merchant fees."

That would be true for credit card fees, but not for stuff like loyalty card discounts.

"Likewise, coupons are almost always funded by the manufacturer who returns those monies to the store."

It doesn't matter. The store is the one charging the customer. As stated, the law says the store cannot charge SNAP recipients more. Thus it would be a violation if we are taking it strictly.

When I lived in Australia, those paying with card were charged the exact amount. Those paying cash would round to the nearest 5 cents, in the customer’s favor. I suspect the same will happen here.

So just round snap transactions too, not just cash ones. Now SNAP recipients are never paying more than any other customer for the same basket of goods.

> require merchants to provide exact change

All the items in my dad's farm shop were priced so they came out to a round dollar amount after tax, and that was 40 years ago.

But less decent people can’t resist the dark pattern of using $x.99 prices everywhere.

At big retailers the price tag code indicates what type of price it is. For example the last digits can mean:

0: full

9: sale

8: reduced

7: clearance (item will not restock)

I forget the exact system Sears used but we could tell at a glance if a deal was really “good”.

I’m curious if Sears and WalMart used different systems and if WalMart exploited knowledge of the Sears system to signal better prices to shoppers. Like a full WalMart price being .97 and clearance being .94.

That sounds close to the Sears system to me, but they used the tens place. 8x was used for returned big ticket items, like appliances and treadmills. It would start at 88 and the rightmost digit would decrement to indicate how many weeks it had been sitting there.

It was 00 for full, 99 for sale (the majority of items, except for the one week every year they established the full price for that product), 8x for clearance.

Ah yeah, I forget the details. It was a sophisticated system. I’m curious of the origins. Did this have bookkeeping or business reporting benefits in the pre-digital age? Even when we were using computers at the turn of the millennium it helped signal discount eligibility without having to update and synchronize inventory with promotional offers.

It’s far more complicated than that. There is no one sales tax for everyone.

Oregon residents didn’t pay sales tax when making purchases in Idaho. Washington charges sales tax on out of state purchases if that state’s sales tax is less than Washington’s, including if it is zero.

How do they deal with sales tax? Connecticut has a 6.35% sales tax so if I buy something for $1, the total will be $1.0635.

Paying cash, you would pay $1.05.

I'm referring to states that don't allow rounding.

> in some states, merchants could face legal trouble for rounding up or down

It seems obvious to me they are already rounding to the $1/100. Why is rounding to $1/20 a problem?

Ah I see. Yeah I agree then.

They could do what every other country does, and include the sales tax in the shelf label price.

If the US properly got rid of pennies (instead of Trump just doing another end-run around congress, by ordering the Mint to stop making them, on shaky legal ground), the legislation could easily supersede those state laws.

What exactly is the law?

Can you show me the statute requiring the treasury department to coin pennies?

Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution gives Congress the authority responsibility to coin money. And in the coinage act of 1792, 31 USC 5111(a)(1), congress directs that the treasury "shall mint and issue coins described in section 5112 of this title in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States", with the list in section 5112 explicitly listing the penny (31 USC 5112(a)(6)). It's clearly intended to instruct the treasury to mint pennies without congress needing to proscribe the varying amount every year. It also clearly demonstrates the intent that pennies "shall" be produced.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mo/st-louis/politics/2025/04/3... https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5111 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5112

The fact that all of that gives leeway for "'none' is all that's necessary" is why I said the legal basis was "shaky" and not "baseless". I think getting rid of pennies is good, but this is something that Congress needs to do, rather than continually abdicating its responsibilities.

Exactly. I believe the treasury will continue minting commemorative pennies, which would even not make it "none" and give a stronger argument that "well yeah we are meeting the [numismatic] needs"

I think this is wrong.

As far as I can tell the relevant statute is 31 USC §5112, and it does not require the minting of all authorized coins:

“(a) The Secretary of the Treasury *may mint* and issue only the following coins: ... (6) ... a one-cent coin that is 0.75 inch in diameter and weighs 3.11 grams.”

(Emphasis mine)

There may be another clause somewhere that requires the Treasury to issue all coins, but that seems unlikely to me. The _number_ of coins to issue of each type is left to the discretion of the Treasury; why wouldn't that include the option to issue none?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5112

I addressed in another reply that "'none' is all that's necessary" is probably a defensible interpretation of the law (the more relevant portion being in 5111 rather than 5112), but the penny being explicitly listed makes it clearly not the intention of congress. That's why I said it's a "shaky" and not "baseless" legal ground. The law is clearly written with the expectation that there will be some, which is why Congress felt the need to pass the Coinage Act of 1857 to phase out the half cent.

I think we should get rid of the penny, but it's Congress's responsibility to do that, and they haven't. I'm opposed to Congress abdicating its power and responsibility like that.

You're right, 5111 is more pertinent here.

5111(a)(1) says “shall mint and issue coins” but qualifies it explicitly with “in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States”. This is a clear delegation of authority.

If you don't think zero pennies is a permissible amount, what about one penny? Two? What minimum number are you arguing for here, and what's your justification for it?

If Congress had wanted to set a minimum number, they could have done so.

Reading it as ”shall mint” is wrong, I think. “Shall” qualifies the whole clause “mint in amounts the Secretary decides (etc.)”.

Understood that way, 5111 makes it unlawful to mint any pennies if the Secretary decides that none are necessary.

If Congress had wanted to get rid of the penny, they would have done so, since they specifically have the power to “coin money” under Article 1, Section 8.

In fact they have introduced a bill to do just that, that has not passed yet, which means they have not done that.

> If Congress had wanted to set a minimum number, they could have done so.

I don't think this is necessarily a sound argument. The current presidency is full of examples of aspects of laws being used in ways no president previously had. Those laws existed, but I don't think it follows that congress intended for those powers to exist.

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