Proposed PA Law Would Change How You Pay Cash For Purchases

PENNSYLVANIA — The demise of penny production could prompt a change that would impact cash transactions in the state.

Citing a nationwide penny shortage, state Rep. Nathan Davidson, said he wants to solve a problem that he contends has created a challenge for counties and local governments that collect a variety of state fees and revenues.

"Many Pennsylvanians prefer to pay in cash, and the penny shortage has made it difficult to provide change to the nearest cent," Davidson, a Cumberland County Democrat, said in a memo to colleagues recently. "Since many of these fees are set in statute, counties and local governments have no flexibility and are left with no good choices.

"For this reason, I will be introducing legislation that would allow cash transactions to be rounded to the nearest nickel."

In February 2025, President Donald Trump cited the high manufacturing cost of producing a single penny - 3.7 cents in 2024 - and called for its demise. The penny subsequently was pronounced dead after 233 years.

Many retailers are already voluntarily rounding up or down in cash transactions. But the legislation would help the state officially remain in compliance with SNAP regulations and supercede the laws of local municipalities that do not embrace rounding policies.

Davidson's proposed legislation, which has not yet been introduced in the House, would not apply to electronic transfers, checks, debit card, or credit card transactions.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced last year that it planned to stop minting pennies in early 2026, ending the penny’s 233-year reign as the cornerstone of U.S. currency.

The announcement by the Treasury Department comes after President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency team raised questions about the cost of making a penny, which is about 3.7 cents.

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site in February. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”

They're not as financially useful as they were in other times as prices have gone up, and digital technologies have overall reduced the use of physical bills and coins for many people. Advocates have been calling for the elimination of the penny for decades.

For example, the Coin Coalition, funded by vending machine manufacturers, arcade owners, and soft drink companies, supports eliminating the penny and the paper dollar bill. The National Association of Convenience Stores has argued eliminating the penny would speed up transaction times.

The decision doesn’t take into consideration the value of pennies and other coins to archeologists, according to Frank Holt, an emeritus professor at the University of Houston who has studied the history of coins in his work

“Since 1793, we have continuously seeded the archeological record with datable pennies, and now we’re going to stop doing that,” Holt lamented in an interview with The Associated Press. “In 2,000 years, there are going to be archeologists pulling out what hair they have left saying, ‘What am I going to do now that I don’t have these datable objects there?’”

With reporting by Beth Dalbey of Patch