PENNY PRODUCTION TO HALT

The U.S. government is phasing out the penny, whose use has spanned more than two centuries.

The Treasury Department will stop putting new pennies into circulation by early next year. Afterward, there won't be enough pennies to use in everyday cash transactions, and businesses will need to start rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cents, the Treasury said in a statement.

The move is the culmination of a long bipartisan effort to do away with the lowest- denomination unit of American currency, which is more likely to end up lost or buried under couch cushions than to be used for transactions.

The Mint will stop making pennies after it runs out of the blank templates used to make them. The final order of blanks was placed this month, according to the statement.

Americans will still be able to use pennies in cash transactions after production stops. As pennies fade from circulation, businesses will have to adjust pricing. Noncash transactions will continue to be priced at exact change. The Treasury said state and local governments should provide guidance to retailers so that sales taxes are properly collected.

 

Congress sets the rules for currency production, including the size and composition of coins, and can discontinue or eliminate coins. But the Treasury said it has the power to halt the production of new coins.

With production costs rising, the U.S. government lost more than $85 million last year on the roughly three billion pennies it produced.

Meanwhile, Americans throw away up to $68 million in coins a year. They are left in plastic bins at airport security checkpoints and even used in art and home decor.

Some 60% of actively circulating coins, or as much as $14 billion, sit in coin jars, according to the Federal Reserve.

Len adds:

To read the complete article (subscription required), see:
Treasury Sounds Death Knell for Penny Production (https://www.wsj.com/finance/penny-coin-mint-ending-2026-b1717de0)

A penny saved was a penny earned. A penny bought your thoughts. A penny was pretty. A penny was pinched. A penny might even be hiding in your loafer.

There won't be as much of that anymore. The Treasury Department said on Thursday that it was phasing out the penny.

After a lifespan nearly as long as the nation itself, America's one-cent coin will begin to fade from the money supply. The U.S. Mint has ordered its last batch of the blanks used to mint the coins, and the Treasury expects to stop putting them into circulation early next year.

The penny's reputation has shifted over more than two centuries. At times a symbol of thriftiness, practicality and even luck, the penny more recently has come to symbolize wasteful government spending.

Penny Marshall. Penny Pritzker. Penny Hardaway. The list of people named after the copper-and-zinc coinage is long. Soon, their names will represent a bygone era.

"Well this is awkward," said Penny Lee, the president and CEO of the Financial Technology Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association. "I guess I have no one to blame but myself, given that I work for the fintech industry. Hopefully, people won't retire me!"

Pennies were born out of the Coinage Act of 1792, which established a mint in Philadelphia to start producing national coins to replace those made by individual states. The following March, 11,178 copper cents rolled into circulation, each larger than a modern quarter.

The coins were a monument to the new democracy. A picture of a woman with flowing hair on it was meant to symbolize liberty. There were no presidents on the coins, unlike in Great Britain where monarchs were on the currency.

It wasn't until 1909 that President Lincoln's face was placed on the penny to honor his 100th birthday.

 

To read the complete article (subscription required), see:
An Ode to the Penny, Departing After 233 Years of Service (https://www.wsj.com/us-news/penny-us-mint-production-ends-a15bfcfa)

 

To read the complete article, see:
What killing the penny means for you (https://www.axios.com/2025/05/24/treasury-penny-production-trump-shopping-change)

To read other coverage, see:
The Treasury unveils its plan to kill the penny (https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/22/business/us-discontinue-penny)
US Mint places final order to kill penny production as part of Trump's order to ‘rip the waste' out of budget (https://nypost.com/2025/05/22/us-news/us-mint-moves-to-kill-penny-with-production-ending-after-final-order/)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE PENNY PURGE: COMMON CENTS OR CENTSLESS? (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n07a29.html)

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