> Maybe it's corruption

It's not corruption. It's what I'll call the interest-group problem.

Pennies are an issue a few people care deeply about and most people don't. It's electorally thrifty to accomodate those few, and so electeds do. It's an easy win, particularly in a partisan environment that punishes consensus building as betrayal of one's base.

Put another way, keeping the penny won't piss anyone off enough to get one primaried. Killing the penny might.

I imagine it would cost less than all the money collectively spent on minting them and buying and maintaining machinery to handle them. Even better if they got rid of the quarter too. But yeah, I can see why no politician has decided to make this their signature issue.

Dollar coins got phased in and out a couple times with no seeming issues.

Well, I think the issue has been people don't mostly like them or use them.

I don't know why the US is uniquely(?) in this stasis around the denomination of money in circulation. Of course, at this point, it's pretty academic.

Pennies should have been gone decades ago. And it's still hit or miss to use anything above a $20 especially in a smaller store.

> people don't mostly like them or use them

This is also true of pennies.

Certainly. Pre-COVID lots of places had little dishes near the register where people could toss one or two pennies in and take one or two out.