Long story short, it isn’t.

Currently the cost of manufacturing a penny is 1.82 cents.

From an economic stand point, this is a waste.

Now from a convenience stand point…this is also a waste. 

Very few machines take pennies, vending machines, washing machines, parking machines, pay phones, parking meters. Why? Because for these companies pennies simply aren’t worth the time it takes to count, store, and transport them.

(Coinstar is an exception however they take a nice 10% of your money while providing nothing in return, except the ability to spend cash that was already yours.)

Other countries who have gotten rid of the penny or one cent coin are, New Zeland, Canada, Switzerland, among others. How they go about doing this is they either withdraw coins from circulation or simply cease minting. 

But what would happen if we didn’t have a penny? We would simply have to round things up or down to 5 or 0.

Military bases already round to the nearest 5 cents 

Things to note, the rounding does not happen at the level of the individual product. The rounding does not happen if you pay with credit.

Circulating back to the analogy, I wonder when we start acting economically and stop giving a penny for someones thoughts.