The SNAP equal treatment rule requirement works in both directions: Prices cannot be higher or lower for SNAP recipients. As a retailer, there is an option to request a waiver, though.
The law did not account for every possible situation. Removal of the penny from national currency is clear a situation where minor variations on otherwise normal transactions would not be in violation of the intent of the law.
It'd be like TSA griping that your 100ml bottle of mouthwash was overfilled by .1ml because of slight variations in the filling process. Nobody cares.
Last week, the government was in a shutdown and it was unclear if SNAP benefits were going to go out. That's not the same as rounding pennies.
Presumably that's fine because a SNAP recipient has access to those same discounts. So wouldn't this be the same - the "cash rounding" discount is available to SNAP and people paying cash?
Things don't just happen to cost *.99 today either, the market just has wiggle room for bullshit about values. With inflation, the coinage that corresponds to also inflates over time. The penny is long past its time.
Furthermore:
> Rounding to the closest nickel will cost consumers about $6 million a year, according to a July study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. That is fairly modest, coming to about five cents each across 133 million American households.
The US lost ~$85 million minting pennies in 2024 because they cost more to make than they are worth. That's over a 10x savings, not a loss. 5 cents is also less than 0.00006% of median household income in 2024.
If people were actually that worried we'd have had laws about credit card transaction fees decades ago.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-II/s...
"Coupons shall be accepted for eligible foods at the same prices and on the same terms and conditions applicable to cash purchases of the same foods at the same store except that tax shall not be charged on eligible foods purchased with coupons."