Oyin Adedoyin
Appearances
The Journal.
For Millions of Student-Loan Borrowers It's Time to Pay
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The Journal.
For Millions of Student-Loan Borrowers It's Time to Pay
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The Journal.
For Millions of Student-Loan Borrowers It's Time to Pay
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The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
The story is, interestingly, about the simple debate of practicality over sentimentality. The penny has gone from a symbol of freedom in some cases, frugality and hard work, to a sign of America's wastefulness. The penny is kind of like that baby blanket that you had as a kid that maybe, you know, a grandparent or someone got for you. And it's followed you around for decades.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
And now we're at the point where we're saying goodbye. Time to let it go. Exactly.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
Yeah. Penny was small but mighty. She inspired so many. She touched so many. She traveled so far. I mean, at one point she was in Mars, but she's also found her way into our homes, between our couch cushions. You know, two of her gave us permission to share our thoughts. So she's really been with us, many of us, for our whole lives, you know, or generations even.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
The penny was born out of the Coinage Act of 1792. And that act established the Philadelphia Mint, which is where pennies were made. And a little over a year after that, 11,000 pennies rolled their way into circulation in And they looked a lot different than what they look like today. They were a little bit larger and they had a woman on the front. She's supposed to represent Lady Liberty.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
She had this windblown hair. And it was kind of the country's way of establishing itself from Great Britain. And it was pretty significant that we didn't have like a monarch or a leader on the penny at the time, you know, contrary to Great Britain.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
Yeah. And then, of course, in 1909, Abraham Lincoln started to appear on the penny. And I feel like that's the penny that we all know and love today. And, I mean, for a lot of people who love the penny, and I've had the pleasure of speaking with a lot of those people recently, they see it as this symbol of American history.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
2006 was really a turning point for the penny. 2006 was the first year that the Mint realized that the penny was costing more than it was worth to make. So the cost of the penny had officially surpassed one cent by that point. And especially in recent years, the cost of making a penny, you know, the materials that go into making it, that zinc, is rising.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
Last year, there was a 20% rise in making the penny.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
Jess, I couldn't believe in the idea that people were just throwing away coins, but I actually went to a waste management facility for a story where they were trying to recycle the thrown away and damaged coins that ended up in their plant.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
And so they had this whole operation where they were literally finding coins, many of them pennies, in the dirt and in the trash and washing them and drying them and returning them to circulation. It turns out Americans throw away about $68 million worth of coins a year. Wow. And one can only imagine how much of those are pennies.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
The Obama administration, for one, was exploring ways to make the penny cheaper and do some kind of investigation and research into what different materials could do that without changing too much about the penny, including its weight and the way that it looked.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
Can Trump, by himself, kill the penny? That was the conversation following his social media post, right? Like, does the president have the power to kill the penny? Can he actually do this? And according to professors who study this and have written books on this, Congress is the only one with the authority to actually abolish a coin, right? Like, rid a coin from circulation.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
But the president and the Department of Treasury can stop production of a coin. if they deem it necessary. And that seems to be what's happening now.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
It seems like with that supply and the remaining supply of pennies that they have left to put in circulation, they're estimating that they're going to officially run out of pennies by early next year.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
Maybe in our piggy banks. Yes. or in the pockets of those jeans that we forgot to, you know, wash maybe. in a washer or dryer somewhere, abandoned, a little dusted. Some fountains that have never been cleaned. At the bottom of some fountains.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
So according to the Treasury, businesses eventually, once we run out of the pennies in circulation, will have to round up or down to the nearest nickel. Now, this could have sales tax implications. So they are encouraging state and local governments to work with their local businesses to maybe draft some guidelines so that, you know, everything is smooth.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
You kind of have to go one way or the other. Yeah. Exactly. Like this has some pretty big implications for the way that we view sales, right? I think there's some kind of psychology in seeing something ending with 99 cents over like a round number, right? Right. It's kind of a wait and see period for when pennies actually get out of circulation and how people and businesses respond to this change.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
Yeah, one of the things that drew me to the penny beat, right, was just the fact that I'm a member of Gen Z. And I have a lot of peers who look at physical money like cash and coins as quote unquote fake money, right? It's not real. A lot of our transactions today happen online or with a tap or with a swipe or even through our phones.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
So we have much less interaction with cash and coins than maybe our parents did. definitely our grandparents.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
Yeah, or even millennials. I mean, the pandemic was a huge culture shift when it came to spending cash because people were afraid to catch anything from a cash exchange with someone. So we are in this post-pandemic era where physical cash is kind of becoming more of a novelty for most consumers than something that's essential.
The Journal.
Stop Making Cents: The End of the Penny
And it's really calling into question what the future of our physical coin and cash economy is going to be. To me, this move to kind of end the penny is the first battle towards a potential cashless future.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
According to the data, it looks like employers were actually expected to hire more graduates this year. There was a 7.3% increase that employers were projecting in the fall, but now employers are saying that they expect to hire the same number of graduates as they did last year.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
And this is according to a spring survey of more than 200 employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. We're also seeing a similar trend with the federal government, which is a place that a lot of graduates see as a stable place to start their careers.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
Hiring freezes brought on by the Trump administration has meant that certain entry-level jobs in the federal government are no longer an option.
WSJ What’s News
President Trump Announces 10% Across-the-Board Tariff on All Imports
More than 9 million student loan borrowers are set to see their credit scores drop in the first half of this year, and that's according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. We reported last month that about 43% of borrowers who owe payments on federal student loans hadn't resumed making them. And that was according to an analysis of government data by VantageScore, a credit score provider.
WSJ What’s News
President Trump Announces 10% Across-the-Board Tariff on All Imports
So that's millions of people who are either seeing that their credit scores are dropping pretty dramatically or on track to see those drops in the coming months.
WSJ What’s News
The Task Force Taking On American Universities
529 plans have gotten super popular in recent years. There are more than 17 million accounts that hold 529. $525 billion in assets. And that was just as of the end of last year, which is up from $157 billion in 2010. So this is both a combination of parents putting regular payments into their 529s, but also gains from the market. And so a lot of those gains are now in jeopardy.
WSJ What’s News
The Task Force Taking On American Universities
Parents are advised by their financial advisors to not freak out, first of all. Take a deep breath, not panic. and just secure as much of their gains as possible.
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
This can have ripple effects throughout the economy. It puts things like homeownership at risk or getting a new car further out of reach for late payers. And so folks who are in this position told me that this just kind of felt like a nail in the coffin.
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
No, not exactly. One of the biggest things that borrowers who are experiencing this have told me is that they feel like they didn't receive sufficient communication from their student loan servicers. Student loan delinquencies are really interesting because, unlike credit card debt, student they don't really start to ping you or hit your credit report until 90 days late.
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
So if you are 30 days late or 60 days late, you don't really hear anything. And at a time like this, when student loans have been paused for so long, people didn't realize that this on-ramp period ended in October. So now, you know, everyone from, you know, folks who are maybe freshly graduated from college to people who are in their 40s trying to get another house,
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
are seeing this in their credit report and kind of freaking out.
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
This can have ripple effects throughout the economy. It puts things like homeownership at risk or getting a new car further out of reach for late payers. Lower scores could also mean lower credit card limits. and higher rates.
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
One of the borrowers that I spoke with told me that she was just getting ready to request a higher limit on her credit card before this happened, and her credit score had dropped over 100 points. So, you know, credit companies are going to see that and tighten their lending.
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
You hit it exactly right. This is a generation of people who are already feeling like the American dream is out of reach for them. Everything just seems to be getting more expensive with the lasting effects of inflation. And so folks who were in this position told me that this just kind of felt like a nail in the coffin.
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
People felt like they were finally getting their head above water and some of these things saved up for a down payment, things like that. And then they get this ding on their credit report that could infringe on their possibility to obtain a home or get a car or just further their adult lives. And credit reports are things that take a long time to build up.
WSJ What’s News
Student-Loan Borrowers Hit by Steep Drop in Credit Scores
Some of these blemishes on your credit report could stay on for up to seven years. So this can be a really long-lasting negative impact for people.