# When the System "Modernizes," Who Really Pays?

The U.S. Mint quietly retired the penny last year—sounds great on paper. Costs 4 cents to mint 1 cent, government saves tens of millions annually. Clean policy math.

But here's what actually happened: Your corner donut shop now rounds up. That missing 2 cents you didn't notice? Multiply it across millions of daily cash transactions, and the Richmond Fed estimates it costs regular consumers roughly $6 million a year.

**The winners?**
- Big banks (no more penny sorting/transport)
- Credit card networks like Visa & Mastercard (every cash transaction that flips to card = fees)
- Walmart-scale retailers (system update = one keystroke)
- The government (spreadsheet looks cleaner)

**The losers?**
- Cash-dependent households (lower-income, unbanked, budget-conscious families)
- Small businesses already bleeding 2.5-3.5% to card processing fees
- Anyone using physical money as their only reliable budgeting tool

Here's the kicker: Unlike Canada or Australia, the U.S. didn't create national rounding rules. So every business rounds differently—and chaos like that always hits vulnerable groups first.

The penny's gone. But the cost of its disappearance? That's not being split equally. Welcome to macro-efficiency's blind spot.