Back of the envelope here…
- Time cashier takes to give me a few pennies in change: ~5 seconds.
- Time I spend later fiddling with those pennies in my wallet while trying to get at other stuff: ~10 seconds.
- Time I spend getting those pennies out of my wallet at some point: ~5 seconds.
Assume I am a typical US worker, making $20 an hour.
$20 / 60 / 60 * (5 + 10 + 5) = $0.11
Average change in pennies given by a cashier: $0.025
Thus, every penny you give me costs me 0.11/0.025 – 1 = 344% its worth. Not to mention your lost time.
Forget Energy, Health Care and Education, we need a penny ban now!