Stop making cents: U.S. Mint moves forward with plans to kill the penny

Freshly-made pennies sit in a bin at the U.S. Mint in Denver on Aug. 15, 2007. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Mint has made its final order of penny blanks and plans to stop producing the coin when those run out, a Treasury Department official confirmed Thursday.

An immediate annual savings of US$56 million in reduced material costs is expected by stopping penny production, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the news.

In February, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he had ordered his administration to cease production of the 1-cent coin.

Trump posted on his Truth Social site then: “For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” He said he had instructed his Treasury secretary to stop their production.

The secretary has the authority to mint and issue coins “in amounts the secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States.”

Advocates for ditching the penny cite its high production cost -- almost 4 cents per penny now, according to the U.S. Mint -- and limited utility. Fans of the penny cite its usefulness in charity drives and relative bargain in production costs compared with the nickel, which costs almost 14 cents to mint.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news.

Pennies are the most popular coin made by the U.S. Mint, which reported making 3.2 billion of them last year. That’s more than half of all the new coins it made last year.

Congress, which dictates currency specifications such as the size and metal content of coins, could make Trump’s order permanent through law. But past congressional efforts to ditch the penny have failed.

Two bipartisan bills to kill the penny permanently were introduced this year.

Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced the Make Sense Not Cents Act this month. In April, Reps. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., and Robert Garcia, D-Calif., along with Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., introduced the Common Cents Act.

Article by Fatima Hussein and Alan Suderman.

Suderman reported from Richmond, Virginia.