One-cent U.S. cash often known as the penny are proven on this illustration image, after U.S. President Trump knowledgeable on his Fact Social media account that he instructed the Secretary of the US Treasury to cease producing new pennies, Feb. 11, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters
The beleaguered U.S. penny resides on borrowed time.
With the price of making the cent coin rising and President Donald Trump searching for methods to cut back pointless spending, the U.S. Treasury has ordered its final batch of “blanks” that it makes use of to kind pennies, a division spokesman mentioned Thursday.
The final of the brand new pennies will enter circulation early subsequent yr. Finally, it would imply that offer will dry up and companies shall be pressed into rounding costs to the closest nickel.
For taxpayers, Treasury says halting the manufacturing of pennies will save $85 million — a modest quantity in comparison with the $6.8 trillion the federal government spent in 2024 however however one other step in fiscal belt-tightening.
“Minting pennies prices the American taxpayer thousands and thousands yearly – practically 4 instances greater than the pennies are price,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) mentioned on Might 1 when he helped introduce the “Make Sense Not Cents Act” that would supply the congressional authorization to cease penny-printing. “No personal enterprise would produce one thing at a 4x loss. It is time to cease losing People’ hard-earned tax {dollars} making overpriced pennies.”
Particularly, the Treasury Division estimates that producing the Abraham Lincoln-fronted coin now prices 3.69 cents apiece, up 20% in 2024 alone.
The U.S. Mint anticipates that halting manufacturing will save $56 million in materials prices, with the steadiness of financial savings coming from facility utilization and efficiencies.
Up till 1982, pennies have been made principally of copper. Due to rising prices, the cash at the moment are made principally of zinc with copper plating.
A lot of U.S. coin manufacturing is concentrated on decrease denominations. As not too long ago as 2021, greater than half of manufacturing was dedicated to pennies, which have been phased out in lots of different nations, in keeping with the Federal Reserve.
A Fed study in 2022 beneficial a multi-year shift away from the penny for worry that eradicating it from circulation too rapidly may set off a stampede from holders to redeem their cash. The research mentioned slicing again on manufacturing in the end may save $100 million.
There are 114 billion pennies in circulation, with an annual manufacturing price of $192 million.
Trump in February first called for ending penny manufacturing, calling it “so wasteful” and urging to “rip the waste out of our nation’s price range, even when it is a penny at a time.”
The Wall Avenue Journal first reported the Treasury Division’s closing penny manufacturing transfer.