A cashier told me my total was $8.55.

The screen said $8.51 and i pointed at the screen.
She said they round up because of the penny shortage.
I handed her $8.51 exact.
But let’s do the math nobody wants to do.
The average fast food chain serves 1 million customers a day.
Round up 4 cents on every transaction.
That’s $40,000 a day. $14,600,000 a year.
On pennies.
On a shortage that conveniently always rounds up and never down.
These companies post billion dollar profits every quarter.
And they’re skimming your change to pad it further.
This isn’t a penny shortage.
This is a corporate policy disguised as a math problem.
Check your receipt.
Every single time.
Because 4 cents times a million people is not a rounding error.
It’s a business model.