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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowPresident Donald Trump says he has directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies, citing the rising cost of producing the one-cent coin.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump wrote in a post Sunday night on his Truth Social site. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”
The move by Trump is the latest in what has been a rapid-fire effort by his new administration to enact sweeping change through executive order and proclamation on issues ranging from immigration, to gender and diversity, to the name of the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump had not discussed his desire to eliminate the penny during his campaign. But Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency raised the prospect in a post on X last month highlighting the penny’s cost.
The U.S. Mint reported losing $85.3 million in the 2024 fiscal year that ended in September on the nearly 3.2 billion pennies it produced. Every penny cost nearly $0.037—up from $0.031 the year before.
The mint also loses money on the nickel, with each of the $0.05 coins costing nearly $0.14 to make.
It is unclear whether Trump has the power to unilaterally eliminate the lowly one-cent coin. Currency specifications, including the size and metal content of coins, are dictated by Congress.
But Robert K. Triest, an economics professor at Northeastern University, has argued that there might be wiggle room.
“The process of discontinuing the penny in the U.S. is a little unclear. It would likely require an act of Congress, but the Secretary of the Treasury might be able to simply stop the minting of new pennies,” he said last month.
Members of Congress have repeatedly introduced legislation taking aim at the zinc coin with copper plating. Proposals over the years have attempted to temporarily suspend the penny’s production, eliminate it from circulation, or require that prices be rounded to the nearest five cents, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Proponents of eliminating the coin have cited cost savings, speedier checkouts at cash registers, and the fact that a number of countries have already eliminated their one-cent coins. Canada, for instance, stopped minting its penny in 2012.
It wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. eliminated its least valuable coin. The half-cent coin was discontinued by Congress in 1857.
Trump’s new administration has been sharply focused on cutting costs, with Musk, who has been brought on to lead the task, targeting entire agencies and large swaths of the federal workforce as he tries to identify a goal of $2 trillion in savings.
“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump wrote in his post.
Trump sent the message as he was departing New Orleans after watching the first half of the Super Bowl.
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This is one of the few things that Trump has done that isn’t stupid. I don’t agree with the way it got done. The Congress has passed a law that says the Treasury Department has to mint pennies. This will stand until the courts or congress catch up with reality.
I suspect that group that will most likely challenge this in the courts, or press a case with Congress is going to be the zinc and copper mining lobbyists. At least according to the NY Times, that is the reason that we still have peenies years after most other countries have dropped the coin.
We need to limit the flow of money to politicians and long before now we might have solved two problems at the same time, pennies, and Trump.
it’s eminently stupid because it’s Congress’s job. They could do this in a day if they wanted. Republicans have full control. Why a co-equal branch of government has decided to be a lap dog to a wannabe king is beyond me.
It’s amazing how something so obviously wasteful, producing a penny that costs more than it’s worth, has continued for so long simply because politicians lacked the will to act. Congress has had decades to fix this issue, yet it took Trump, once again, to do what should have been done ages ago. The numbers speak for themselves: over $85 million wasted last year alone on minting pennies. And let’s not forget, the nickel is even worse!
Predictably, NYT readers are completely missing the point. The Times wants to make this about Trump overreach instead of focusing on the real issue: why has Congress ignored this problem for years? Because, as usual, they’re beholden to special interests in this case, the zinc and copper lobbies. That’s why we’ve kept minting these useless coins while other nations, like Canada, moved on over a decade ago.
To those complaining about how this was done spare me the faux outrage. If Congress wanted to act, they could’ve done it years ago, yet they haven’t. If they want to challenge it now, let them explain why wasting taxpayer money is a hill they want to die on. Meanwhile, anyone still reading the NYT to “understand” what’s going on in this country is at a serious disadvantage. They’re being fed narratives instead of facts.
At the end of the day, this is just another example of Trump cutting through bureaucracy and delivering results, while his critics who’ve done nothing to fix the problem—whine about process. And that is my 2 cents worth, or actually 7.4 cents!!
The NY Times did report on “the real issue” a few years ago. That’s why I know about the effect of lobbying dollars on this particular issue.
As for Trumps overreach, you’d have to be completely ignorant of how the constitution and the founding fathers envisioned the government is supposed to function. You don’t need a newspaper to tell you this is not the way the federal government works. Congress has indeed broken their oath and are making themselves irrelevant while help shape an autocrat.
Without a functioning congress we have lost what little say in government. And again back to my final point, dark money and unlimited lobbying money is destroying representative democracy.
Wrong again Dan M. The U.S. Department of the Treasury falls under the executive branch of the federal government. It is responsible for managing government revenue, producing currency, collecting taxes, and overseeing financial institutions. The department is led by the Secretary of the Treasury, who is a member of the President’s Cabinet, and as head of the executive branch he has the right to make changes.
This is something that should have been done a long time ago. How many of the pennies go into hoarders’ stockpiles? Also, many businesses have a penny dish sitting at the checkout to eliminate getting 4 pennies as change.