All of us have been there. You pay cash at the checkout counter and your bill is $10.02. You have no change. You’re about to get some change, though. The changer is about to dispense 98 cents. The two cents have done it again.
While many people have complained about the existence of the single penny for years, no one has taken any action. Until now.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social page that he ordered the U.S. Treasury Department not to produce the penny.
For far too long the United States has minted pennies which cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.
Even if it is a penny at a time, it sounds nice. But in reality, it costs the Treasury – U.S. taxpayers – almost four cents per penny to produce.
The U.S. Mint has reported that it produced nearly 3.2 billion pennies in fiscal year 2024. This resulted in a $85.3 million loss. The cost of a penny has increased from $0.031 to $0.037.
Even though $85.3 million is a drop in the bucket for Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), which claims to have cut spending by more than $1 billion a day, the amount still exceeds $85 million. The cost will continue to rise if the production of pennies continues.
Forbes has more information:
Congress has not yet decided how to respond to Trump’s announcement that the pennies will no longer be minted. Even if this move is supported by both GOP-controlled chambers of Congress, lawmakers will still have to pass legislation regarding cash transactions that are not divisible into the next lowest denomination – the five-cent coin. In previous legislative attempts, either the rounding up of prices or the rounding down to five cents was required.
Nickel or five-cent coins also cost more to manufacture than their face value. According to the U.S. Mint, each nickel will cost 13.78 cents in FY 2024. The mint lost $17.7 million in total on nickel production last year.
Try to contain your shock. In December, an activist group opposed to the end of penny production resisted DOGE’s recommendations. Forbes continued:
Americans for Common Cents – a group that has been lobbying for the production of pennies – reacted to DOGE’s announcement late last month by saying it was “completely off the mark”. The group said the nickel is responsible for most losses, as its production costs are nearly 14 cents each.
Artazn, the company that supplies zinc blanks for the production of penny coins to the U.S. Mint, is one of the group’s backers.
Fine. Stop making the penny and nickel. What would happen to the dime then?
As Gilda Radner’s classic character Roseanne Roseannadanna told us in the early days of “Saturday Night Live”: “It just goes to show, it’s always something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
