I think the fact that the US hasn't gotten rid of the penny has less to do with zinc lobbyists and more to do with the fact that doing so would be acknowledgement that the dollar is experiencing inflation

@valleyforge I'm not sure its either of those to be honest. I think it has more to do with the fact that it would devalue the money supply. A penny is worth more than a penny in terms of raw material, many people keep huge quantities of pennies for their intrinsic rather than implied value.

In addition it means rounding loss for the government on things like taxes. If you buy 1.05 in stuff and tax comes to 0.19 (random numbers) you'd only be able to pay 0.15 in sales tax and the government would have lost out on nearly 25% of their tax in that particular transaction.