Erica Barris

Erica Barris appears in Betty Boop, Excel Olympics, Penny-isms: Our 2026 Valentines as the Planet Money participant giving a Valentine to the U.S. penny. Her segment calls the penny “the one that got away” and treats it as an object of memory and language even as the source says new penny minting is ending.

The episode uses Barris to separate Coin Retirement Economics from cultural attachment. The penny may be costly to produce and less needed in a digital-payments economy, but it still survives in sayings, tactile memory, and everyday idioms.

Connections

• Planet Money and NPR - show and network context.
• [[UnitedStatesMint|U.S. Mint]] and [[USTreasury|U.S. Treasury]] - institutions tied to minting policy.
• Coin Retirement Economics - economics and cultural-afterlife concept.
• Kenny Malone - host connecting the penny segment to the broader episode.