BY ADELE SAMMARCO

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Gone are the days of saving a penny and earning that penny.

Why you ask?

Well, America spends more money just to make each and every penny, which contributes to our ever increasing national debt.

During a recent “fireside’-style chat with President Barack Obama, remindful of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's popular radio addresses of the 1930s, a participant in an online Google+ hangout chat Thursday asked why the U.S. has not yet phased out the small coin.

The President responded simply that the U.S. spends more to make something people do not often use, and cites it is an example of something that should change.

In 1943 during World War II, copper pennies were made from steel. The U.S. Mint, which produces our currency, decided to use the metal because copper was in demand for use in the war. Real copper coins today are a collector’s delight since they can reach values of up to $10,000 or more.

Changes in the price of metal commodity, combined with the continual debasement of paper currencies, causes the metal value of pennies to exceed their face value. Several nations have stopped minting equivalent value coins, and efforts have been made to end the routine use of pennies in several countries, including Canada and the United States. Across the pond in the United Kingdom, one-and two-penny coins have been made from copper-plated steel, making them magnetic instead of bronze since 1992.

If the America does drop the penny from its federal U.S. Mint roster of currency, it would be following in the footsteps of its most northern neighbor.

Earlier this month, the Royal Canadian Mint stopped distribution of its penny with the goal of phasing out the little coin. It costs Canada 1.6 pennies to make just one, resulting in a loss.

The United States faces a similar losing situation. In 2011, it cost the nation 2.4 cents to manufacture each coin.

According to the Citizens to Retire the U.S. Penny, the country spent nearly $120 million in 2011 to produce $50 million worth of coins.

Yet proponents of the idea argue dropping the penny would definitely produce savings. However, in the grand scheme of the overall debt, the amount would be minuscule compared with the government's $3.5 trillion in spending every year.

So, retiring the penny is not as easy as it may seem. Even the President of the free world has no authority over the tiny coin. It would actually take an act of Congress to intervene and say its final good-bye.

Although open to getting rid of the penny, Obama admitted it is “hard to get rid of things that don't work so we can invest in the things that do”…and believes the penny has become a “metaphor” for the problems the country faces as a whole.