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RE: Why I collect copper pennies and you should too.
Canada had done away with its penny and cash purchases are now rounded up or down to the nearst .05 cents.
On an individual basis — it's negligible. However - imagine all 35 million CDN's making just one cash purchase per day which has been rounded up by just one penny... that's a cool CDN $350,000.00 of "lost money" - legally stolen from the populace by the stroke of a pen.
USSA has ten times the population = that's $3,500,000.00 ...DAILY!
Wow, I had never looked at it like that. It's a crime.
Well, it is statistically zero sum game - some bills will be rounded up, and some down so the balance would be ~zero. In some countries lowest value of circulating coin is much higher than US or Canadian cent (Sweden for example where the lowest is 1 Krona = 15 Canadian cents) and nobody seems to mind as they round bills down (0,50 and less) and up (0,51 and more).
I see.
Retailers aren't naive to the fact they MUST adjust cost scale to maximize the opportunity to a round up situation or potentially face a loss of revenue. As dubious as the practice may be, many retailers are simply rounding up. Granted, the amounts may be seem trivial to the casual purchaser, but the business owner will certainly want to ensure as many pennies as possible find their way to the black side of the ledger.