February is the shortest month of the year. It's the flex month where we stick extra days to make the calendar work.

Depending on what hemisphere you're in, it can be a month of warmth and sunshine or a month of short days in cold weather.

But it's also a month of something else. It's a month where you have questions and I have answers.

Stay tuned for the 27th installment of questions

and answers on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is brought to you by Sun Express Airlines.

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Let's jump right in with the first question. Dan Banawatz asks, should we get rid of the U.S. penny?

They cost more than their worth and seem to be unnecessary.

The short answer is, yes, we should probably stop manufacturing them.

But that doesn't mean that we are getting rid of them, however.

As you mentioned, we lose money on every penny we create because the materials and processing cost more than the actual coin.

The difference in the value of money and the cost to make it is known as seniorage.

The penny has negative seniorage, which is a big signal that it is no

longer worth making. This is entirely a function of inflation. You literally cannot buy anything

anymore with a single penny. Growing up, I could at least put a penny in a gumball machine and get a

tiny gumball out, but you can't even do that anymore, assuming you could even find a gumball machine.

The penny has been studied extensively, and what we have found is that most people don't even use them.

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