Common Cents Act: rounding all cash prices to the nearest nickel
“Why is it a penny for your thoughts,” standup comedian Steven Wright quipped, “but you have to put your two cents in?”
What the legislation does
With the penny discontinued last year, the Common Cents Act would require a federal price rounding policy to the nearest nickel – or five cents – for cash transactions.
So if an item cost $9.96 or $9.97, for example, the cash transaction would be rounded down to $9.95. But if it cost $9.98 or $9.99, the cash transaction would be rounded up to $10.00.
Meanwhile, if the transaction wasn’t made with cash – such as a credit card, debit card, or digital payment like Venmo, PayPal, or CashApp – the price could still remain the same.
The legislation, first introduced in 2025, would have also stopped minting the one-cent penny coin. However, the Treasury Department unilaterally stopped doing so a few months after the legislation’s introduction, on its own.
Reps. Lisa McClain (R-MI9) and Robert Garcia (D-CA42) teamed up across party lines to introduce the House version in April 2025. Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) similarly teamed up across party lines to introduce the Senate version the very next day.
Context
By 2024, a one-cent penny cost 3.69 cents to produce, more than triple the coin’s actual face value.
President Donald Trump announced that he intended to discontinue the penny, in a February 2025 Truth Social post. The Treasury Department more “officially” announced it that May, followed by the final penny’s minting that November.
To be clear, the penny wasn’t banned: it still remains legal to use. They’re hardly rare, with around 114 billion pennies in circulation. That averages about 332 for every person in the U.S. – and far more per person who actually still uses them.
What supporters say
Supporters argue that it was time for the penny to go, so cash-based prices should be adjusted accordingly to the value of the nearest coin still being minted: the nickel, or five cents.
“The [legislation] is about fiscal responsibility and good government,” lead House sponsor Rep. McClain said in a press release. “Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill to produce a coin that loses money every time it’s made. It’s time to modernize our currency policy.”
“The time has come to fully end production of the penny and save American taxpayers money,” lead Senate sponsor Sen. Lummis said in a separate press release. “The fiscal reality is undeniable: the U.S. Mint spends three cents to produce each one-cent coin. With a $36 trillion national debt, we have to implement meaningful opportunities to reduce costs, update our currency system, and codify the elimination of government inefficiencies.”
What opponents say
Opponents counter that the federal rounding policy would primarily hurt the low-income, while not affecting the better-off.
“Consumers who use cash to pay may face a ‘rounding’ tax, as businesses may round transactions to the disadvantage of consumers, which would likely disproportionately affect older Americans and low-income individuals,” eight Democratic House members, led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA43), wrote in the ‘Minority Views’ section of a House report on the subject.
“On the other hand, consumers using electronic payments like credit and debit transactions would remain unaffected and have their transactions executed in exact amounts,” the eight Democrats continued. (Higher-income people are more likely to both have and use credit cards.)
What happens next
The House Financial Services Committee approved the bill in July 2025, by a 35-13 vote. Committee Republicans unanimously approved it by 25-0, while committee Democrats narrowly opposed it by 10-13.
As of this writing, the full House has not voted on it.
The Senate version has been referred to the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
Again, the legislation’s component about discontinuing penny production was already accomplished, albeit by the executive branch instead of the legislative.
If the legislation doesn’t pass, a number of states from across the political spectrum are taking action to set five-cent rounding policies at the state level.
A five-cent nickel also costs far more than its face value, at 13.78 cents to produce. Yet for some reason, there seems to be fairly little push to similarly discontinue that coin.
The penny’s cost was the subject of everything from a New York Times Magazine feature article to a scene in The West Wing. Yet the nickel has faced comparatively little media or political attention.