President Trump claims he has instructed the U.S. Treasury Department to stop producing pennies, calling the 1 cent coin wasteful.
Trump announced his actions in a Truth Social post Sunday night.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations [sic] budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump said.
The cost of making a penny was nearly 3.7 cents in Fiscal Year 2024 — the 19th consecutive year that the production cost of the coin has outpriced its face value, according to the U.S. Mint’s annual report.
Pennies were made of copper before 1962 and are currently made majority of zinc but with copper plating. Lincoln has been on the penny since 1909, and the penny was the first coin made by the U.S. Mint, according to the Treasury Department.
Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has been tasked by Trump with cutting waste in the U.S., targeted the penny in a post on X last month.
“The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost US taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023. The Mint produced over 4.5 billion pennies in FY2023, around 40% of the 11.4 billion coins for circulation produced. Penny (or 3 cents!) for your thoughts,” Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said.
It is unclear whether Trump has the power to unilaterally eliminate the lowly 1-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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
