Freshly-made pennies sit in a bin at the U.S. Mint in Denver
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US Mint moves ahead with plan to end penny production

Adam Cage

The U.S. Mint has placed its final order for penny blanks and will stop making the coin once those blanks are used up, a Treasury Department official said Thursday.

By ending penny production, the government expects to save $56 million each year in material costs, according to the official. The official was not allowed to speak publicly and shared the information anonymously ahead of the formal announcement.

In February, President Donald Trump said he had told his administration to stop making the 1-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 at that time in a post on his Truth Social site. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”

The U.S. Treasury Secretary has the legal authority to produce and issue coins “in amounts the secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States.”

People who support getting rid of the penny often point to how expensive it is to make — nearly 4 cents each, according to the U.S. Mint — and say it’s not very useful. On the other hand, some people argue the penny is helpful for charity collections and is still cheaper to make than the nickel, which costs almost 14 cents to produce.

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The Wall Street Journal was the first to report this development.

The penny is the most commonly made coin by the U.S. Mint, which produced 3.2 billion of them last year. That number represents more than half of all new coins made in the same period.

Congress, which controls the design and metal content of U.S. coins, could make Trump’s decision permanent by passing a law. However, previous attempts by Congress to eliminate the penny have not been successful.

This year, two bipartisan bills were introduced to permanently stop penny production.

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.