Canada

US Treasury to Phase Out the Penny

MAY 23 2025·Updated MAY 24 2025

Story

Above: A bin holds blank shapes that will be turned into one-cent coins at the U.S. Mint in Denver, Colo., in March 2012. Image credit: Jim West/Contributor/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Facts

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement on Thursday that its in-house coin producer, the U.S. Mint, will end the manufacturing of the penny — the lowest-denomination unit of American currency — by early next year when a final order of blank templates placed this month runs out.
CBS News
The Wall Street Journal
This comes as part of a bipartisan effort to eliminate the one-cent coin that includes the introduction of two bills over the past two months — the Common Cents Act in the House of Representatives in April and the Make Sense Not Cents Act in the Senate in May.
ap
FOX News
Politico
In February, President Donald Trump announced that he had directed the U.S. Treasury to stop minting new metal Lincolns — one of the first coins that the U.S. Mint produced after its establishment in 1792 — as the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency put penny production costs on the spotlight.
New York Post
The Hill
USA Today
According to the U.S. Mint's 2024 annual report, the cost to make one penny increased 20% in that fiscal year alone to about 3.69 cents — the 19th consecutive year that penny production costs remained above its face value — with 3.2 billion of the 114 billion one-cent coins in circulation in the U.S. produced last year.
New York Post
NBC
The Hill
The U.S. Mint projects an immediate annual savings of $56 million in reduced material costs, with more savings expected once penny-production facilities are converted for other purposes. The U.S. lost more than $85 million to produce one-cent coins last year, and Americans are estimated to throw away up to $68 million in coins every year.
nytimes
The Wall Street Journal
On Friday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox News' America's Newsroom that the U.S. could also "retool the nickel and change its composition" to reduce the approximate 14-cent production cost of the five-cent coin.
nytimes
The Washington Examiner

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The Spin

Pro-establishment narrative

Killing the penny makes perfect economic sense as the government loses millions of taxpayer dollars every year to mint new one-cent coins. Production costs have soared due to rising zinc and copper prices, and Americans increasingly abandon cash payments for digital transactions. Canada eliminated its one-cent coin over a decade ago with no economic disruption.

Breitbart

The Washington Post

Establishment-critical narrative

This is an ill-founded decision that will actually cost taxpayers more money because eliminating one-cent coins will dramatically increase demand for nickels, which lose even more money per coin at 14 cents to produce. This policy ignores the fact that low-denomination coins protect consumers from inflation and rounding taxes that disproportionately harm cash-dependent, low-income Americans who rely on precise pricing for their daily transactions.