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The US Mint has placed its final order for penny blanks (the metal discs for coinage) and plans to stop producing the coins when they run out, a Treasury Department official recently confirmed. The decision comes at a time when the cost of making pennies has increased considerably, by more than 20% in 2024, according to the Treasury.
By halting production of the lowest denomination coins, the Treasury expects to save $56 million annually in material costs for coins that often end up in cups or pockets and are forgotten for years.
Donald Trump pushes the measure
In February, President Donald Trump announced that he had ordered his istration to cease production of the 1-cent coin.
"America has been coining pennies that literally cost us more than 2 cents. It's a waste!" Trump wrote at the time in a post on his Truth Social website. "I have ordered my Secretary of the Treasury to stop producing new pennies."
There are currently around 114 billion pennies in circulation in the United States, or $1.14 billion, but they are vastly underutilized, according to the Treasury. The penny was one of the first coins minted by the U.S. Mint after its founding in 1792.
Those who advocate for the elimination of the penny cite its high production cost - nearly four cents per penny currently, according to the US Mint - and its limited usefulness. ers of the penny highlight its usefulness in charitable campaigns and its relatively low production cost compared to the nickel, which costs almost 14 cents to mint.
The elimination would have to go hand in hand with 'rounding'
Pennies are the most popular coin minted by the US Mint, which reported making 3.2 billion units last year. This s for more than half of all new coins it minted last year.
Jay Zagorsky, a professor of markets, public policy and law at Boston University, said that while he s the move to eliminate penny production, Congress must include in any proposed legislation a provision requiring rounding up in prices, which would eliminate the demand for pennies.
There are coins of this denomination that could be worth a fortune, as although they are no longer minted, many of us could have one of them forgotten in our homes, such as the famous '1943-D Lincoln Wheat Penny: bronze/copper' or the '1856 Flying Eagle Penny' that can fetch prices in the millions at numismatic auctions.