WHAT'S A PENNY WORTH?

One of my grandaughters posted a comment on Facebook recently that stated, "The penny was only a good idea when things cost only a penny."  Well, I thought, there is some wisdom in that statement.  Then I thought some more and wondered when was the last time that things cost only a penny.

There certainly aren't many things you can buy for a penny today.  As far as I know, there is no penny candy,  no penny ante (as in a friendly poker game), no penny bubble gum, no penny anything.

Further, you can't even use a penny to by-pass a burnt out fuse when you don't have a replacement.  Ignoring the fact that that was never a good idea, it is no longer possible since nearly all fuse boxes today are actually circuit breaker boxes.  Just reset the circuit breaker after you've determined the cause of the problem; never mind trying to by-pass it.

Pennies are not even much good for paying sales taxes as most merchants round everything off the nearest five cents.  (They always round up; never down.)  For those few times you actually need a penny, many merchants have a small dish on the counter where other customers before you have (or may) toss the pennines they receive in change and you are welcome to help yourself if you need a penny or two.

Probably few people reading this blog can remember when sales tax was paid with mills, as it was in some parts of the country.  I was raised in Missouri and that state used mills to pay sales tax well into the 1940s.  I know this to be true because  I have some of the plastic mills that were minted during World War II when metal was in short supply.  Not only were mills cast in plastics but the copper penny was recast as a lead penny for a short time during that period.

What the hell is a mill?  A mill was one-tenth of a cent.  If you had a pocket full of mills -- as annoying as having a pocket full of pennies today -- you could sell 10 of them to any merchant for a penny.

That little history lesson in coinage aside, I wondered when was the last time one could buy something for a penny.  In other words, when was the last time a penny was good for anything other than paying sales tax.

I turned for this investigation to the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) Cost-of-living Calculator at http://www.aier.org/research/worksheets-and-tools/cost-of-living-calculator.  This handy little calculator allowed me to check the cost of things as they once were compared with now.

I started with 10 cents, since you can still buy a few things for that amount.  What I found using the AIER calculator was that 10 cents in 2011 was worth one cent in 1966 dollars.  Whatever one might has purchased for one penny in 1966 would cost 10 cents in today's dollars.

This started me thinking about other monetary benchmarks.  For example, I began my full-time teaching career in Park Forest, Illinois in the fall of 1961.  I was working on my master's degree at the University of Missouri when our third daughter decided to join the family.  Her emergence on the scene convinced me that I needed to forsake campus life and student loans in favor or a paying job.

I ended up at Rich Township High School, East after they offered me the princely sum of $5600.  This was $200 more than most first-year teachers received since I had completed 19 hours toward my masters in mathematics and math teachers with those credentials were in short supply.  We were in the post-Sputnik era and the US was desparate to improve students' knowledge of math and science.

I was surprised to learn, using the AIER calculator that my $5600 annual pay in 1966 was equivalent to $41,241 in 2011 dollars.  I do not know what starting teachers' salaries are today, but I suspect some (if not most) would be happy to have that amount to start paying down their college-loan debt.

Take away that extra $200 I got for being half way to a master's degree and my starting salary would have been $39,768 in today's dollars, a difference or $1,473.  Education does pay.

As a point of reference, the superintendent of schools at the time was making $25,000, as I remember.  He had many years experience on me, plus a doctor's degree, something I would not acquire until 16 years later.  I dropped his salary into the calculator and it spit out the amount of $184,113 in 2011 bucks.  That's not too shabby, but remember, schools today are considerably more complicated, students less well behaved and state and federal mandates keep school administrators on their toes.

Apparently the penny stopped buying much in the mid-1960s -- other than as a token for paying sales tax.  But we might all use the AIER calculator to compare cost of familiar items with then and now.  You may be surprised at how much (or how little) some items have increased.