President Donald Trump announced plans to put a stop to producing pennies, which cost more than their value to make.
“For far too long, the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”
He added, “Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.”
This is the president’s latest move to reduce spending in the U.S. after taking office on Jan. 20.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is led by billionaire Elon Musk, posted on X last month that producing the penny is costing American taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, suggesting that it may be one of the items it may consider eliminating.
According to the U.S. Mint, each penny costs 3.69 cents to produce in fiscal year 2024, costing taxpayers $119 million. This marked the 19th consecutive year in which production exceeded its face value.
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One Response
Most major countries have stopped issuing coins that are worth so little. However that requires issuing “new cents” (similar to Israel did twice in the late 20th century), which the US has never done, or expecting people to be able to do the math involved in rounding prices to the nearest “Five cents”. Historically, the United States did issue “Half cents” but that was over 150 years ago (at a time when the minimum wage was under ten cents per hour).