United States President, Donald Trump, announced on Sunday that he directed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to end the production of pennies due to the rising cost of minting the coin.
“For far too long, the United States has minted pennies which literally 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,” Trump stated in a social media post as he returned to Washington after attending the Super Bowl.
The penny has faced criticism for years, with calls to eliminate it gaining momentum in recent months.
The push intensified after the Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk, highlighted the issue in January on X, emphasizing the high cost of producing the coin.
The Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to reduce federal spending, pointed out the financial burden of minting pennies, sparking renewed debate.
Several attempts to pass bills in Congress to halt penny production have failed over the years.
A 2023 report by CNN revealed that the US Mint produced approximately 4.1 billion pennies last year.
According to the US Mint’s 2024 fiscal year report, the cost of producing and distributing a penny had risen to about 3.7 cents per coin, a 20% increase compared to the previous year. The rising costs of raw materials such as zinc and copper have significantly contributed to the increase.
In a January 2024 article, The New York Times Magazine described the penny as a symbol of government inefficiency.
“The necessity of abolishing the penny has been obvious to those in power for so long that the inability to accomplish it has transformed the coin into a symbol of deeper rot,” the piece argued.
Discussions about eliminating small denominations aren’t new. Back in 2013, a commentary published by the Brookings Institution suggested going further by ceasing production of nickels as well.
“Perhaps the problem is not that advocates have been too bold, but rather that they have been too timid—let’s drop not just pennies, but nickels too and stop using the rightmost decimal place at all,” the commentary proposed.
