Penny wise: Trump says it’s time to stop making 1-cent coins

President Trump has instructed the Treasury secretary to stop making pennies, which he calls “wasteful.”

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents,” Mr. Trump posted Sunday night on Truth Social. “This is so wasteful!”

“I have instructed my Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was sworn in late last month.

Minting pennies costs more than they are worth, nearly $0.037 per 1 cent. The U.S. Mint reported a loss of $85.3 million in fiscal 2024 on the roughly 3.2 billion pennies it produced.

In his first weeks in office, Mr. Trump has been fiercely focused on cutting government spending, much of it directed by Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency that the president created.

The DOGE X account pointed out the cost of pennies in a post 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,” the DOGE account’s post said.

The U.S. discontinued its half-cent coin in 1857.

Canada discontinued its penny in 2012, citing the cost of the coin production.

“Usually, when things are valuable, it’s quite clear. People want them. They do things to get them. And with the penny, the opposite occurs,” said William Luther, associate professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University and director of the Sound Money Project at the American Institute of Economic Research.

“We would rather dispose of them than have to carry them around,” he said.

Mr. Luther said the zinc lobby is the only reason pennies are still around. Pennies are more than 90% zinc.

He said the only people who would likely miss pennies are those who enjoy the one-cent pieces for nostalgia.

“We should just ask ourselves what would be different in a world without a penny, and for most of our transactions, for the vast majority of our transactions, the answer is absolutely nothing,” he said. “However, we would free up all the resources that are currently being used to produce, handle, store and process pennies. All those resources would be freed up to do other things.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said eliminating the penny would be a “great move.”

“As well as saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, there are major environmental benefits to eliminating the penny,” Mr. Polis wrote in an X post.

Northeastern University economics professor Robert K. Triest said last month in the Northeastern Global News that the process of eliminating the penny 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.

Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican and head of the Senate DOGE Caucus, called attention in November to the money spent on pennies in a letter to Mr. Musk and then-co-head of DOGE Vivek Ramaswamy listing some areas of government waste.

“The government is losing money making money, paying more than three cents to produce a penny and more than 11 cents for a nickel,” she wrote. “That makes no cents when simply changing the composition of the coins could save more than $50 million a year.”

In a statement to The Washington Times, Ms. Ernst said, “Only Washington would find a way to lose money making money.”

“For years, I’ve highlighted the excessive costs of coining money and pushed for making change,” she said. “I am thrilled to see President Trump using my playbook to save taxpayers’ money. It just makes cents!”

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.