President Trump announced Sunday that he is telling the Treasury Department to stop minting pennies, ending a 233-year run of the 1-cent coin.
The penny, one of the first coins made by the U.S. Mint after its establishment in 1792, now costs more than two cents to produce, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site shortly after departing the Super Bowl game in New Orleans.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump wrote. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”
The penny has been in the crosshairs of Trump officials since he took office. Last month, DOGE, the department run by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, said that producing 4.5 billion pennies in Fiscal Year 2023 cost taxpayers more than $179 million.
More:A new penny-pinching tactic? Elon Musk’s DOGE says getting rid of the penny could cut costs
That works out to over 3 cents per penny. Trump’s latest 2-cent cost estimate gives the penny a break, but not enough to keep it from being axed from the mint’s production.
“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump wrote.
For the 2024 fiscal year, the annual U.S. Mint report said that it takes about 3.7 cents to produce and distribute one penny, a 20% increase from the previous year. The increase has been partly driven by the rising costs of metals like zinc and copper, according to the report.
Rising production costs have spurred other countries to eliminate small denomination coins. Canada stopped making pennies in 2012, and Australia stopped circulating one and two-cent coins back in 1992. In the U.S., discontinuing the penny entirely may require congressional approval.
Contributing: Fernando Cervantes Jr.