A pile of US pennies is seen in this photo illustration in Washington, DC, February 10, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
The beleaguered U.S. penny is living on borrowed time.
With the cost of making the cent coin rising and President Donald Trump looking for ways to reduce unnecessary spending, the U.S. Treasury has ordered its last batch of “blanks” that it uses to form pennies, a department spokesman said Thursday.
The last of the new pennies will enter circulation early next year. Ultimately, it will mean that supply will dry up and businesses will be pressed into rounding prices to the nearest nickel.
For taxpayers, Treasury says halting the production of pennies will save $85 million — a modest amount compared to the $6.8 trillion the government spent in 2024 but nevertheless another step in fiscal belt-tightening.
“Minting pennies costs the American taxpayer millions every year – nearly four times more than the pennies are worth,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said on May 1 when he helped introduce the “Make Sense Not Cents Act” that would provide the congressional authorization to stop penny-printing. “No private business would produce something at a 4x loss. It’s time to stop wasting Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars making overpriced pennies.”
Specifically, the Treasury Department estimates that producing the Abraham Lincoln-fronted coin now costs 3.69 cents apiece, up 20% in 2024 alone.
The U.S. Mint anticipates that halting production will save $56 million in material costs, with the balance of savings coming from facility usage and efficiencies.
Up until 1982, pennies were made mostly of copper. Because of rising costs, the coins are now made mostly of zinc with copper plating.
Much of U.S. coin production is focused on lower denominations. As recently as 2021, more than half of production was devoted to pennies, which have been phased out in many other nations, according to the Federal Reserve.
A Fed study in 2022 recommended a multi-year shift away from the penny for fear that removing it from circulation too quickly could trigger a stampede from holders to redeem their coins. The study said cutting back on production ultimately could save $100 million.
There are 114 billion pennies in circulation, with an annual production cost of $192 million.
Trump in February first called for ending penny production, calling it “so wasteful” and urging to “rip the waste out of our nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported the Treasury Department’s final penny production move.