Trump Ends The Penny: Here's What Happens Now

It is official. The Treasury has confirmed it. The penny is being discontinued. So let me know what you think. Are you going to miss it? I'm going to let you know what I think, but first I'm going to show you what happens and what's to come. Okay, so let's begin here. On January 21st, the Department of Government Efficiency, so DOGE, posted this on X. The penny cost over $0.03 to make and cost U.S. taxpayers over $179 million in fiscal year 2023. And then about two and a half weeks later, on February 9th, here's what President Trump posted on Truth Social. For far too long, the United States has minted pennies, which literally cost us more than two cents. 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 nation's budget, even if it's a penny at a time. Okay, so essentially, President Trump wants to put an end to the penny because he says that it's wasteful. Now, I want to ask you, do you know how much it costs to make a penny? Like personally, I didn't because, you know, I hear it ranging from two cents, you know, three cents, four cents, like which one is it? So I had to check and confirm. So I went to the most recent report by the United States Mint, which is their annual report for 2024. And here it is on page 10 of the report. So for fiscal year 2024, the cost to produce a U.S. penny increased by 20.2%. It now costs 3.69 cents to create a penny. And the cost to produce a penny has been more than one cent for the past 19 years in a row now. Okay, so yes, it is true. The U.S. Mint is spending 3.69 cents to make a penny. So for fiscal year 2024, the U.S. Mint produced 3.2 billion pennies. So the government lost $85.3 billion, spending 3.69 cents to make one cent. Okay, so here's a fun fact. There are approximately 240 billion pennies in circulation in the United States of America. So that's about 720 pennies for every American. Like I can honestly tell you that I don't have my fair share of pennies. Like I don't have 720 pennies on me. So probably one of you is holding more than their fair share. About 60% of those pennies in circulation are just sitting in coin jars. And this is according to the Federal Reserve. Now, a good question is revolving around the legality. Can President Trump and Treasurer Secretary Scott Besant do this? Like, do they have the power to make this decision? And the answer is yes. The Treasurer Secretary does have the authority to make decisions about coin production. However, Congress could pass legislation to make the pennies discontinuation permanent. But I'll tell you this, the majority of Republicans and Democrats, like this is bipartisan, they're in favor of ending the penny. Legislation has already been drafted and introduced over the past many years. And this is just one example of what you're looking at. It's the Make Sense, Not Sense Act that was previously introduced into the Senate. And then you have this one that was introduced into the House of Representatives. It's called the Common Sense Act. So listen, this is really happening. And I don't think that there's going to be much of a fight in opposition. Okay, so here's what's going to happen. So what happens next? In May of 2025, the government placed their final order for blank pennies. So that's going to be their last batch of production. So the government's going to stop putting new pennies into circulation by early 2026. And for cash transactions, businesses are expected to round up or down to the nearest 5 cents. Now, I want you to understand that the elimination of the penny, it's not going to be anything new. It's not going to be anything revolutionary. So I want you to know that the United States has eliminated many coins. So I actually went down one of those crazy rabbit holes just looking into this. So for example, the half-cent coin, there was a half-cent coin. It was eliminated. Obviously, inflation made it obsolete. There was actually a two-cent coin. There was low usage on this one and it just faded away out of circulation. It's kind of like what happened to the $2 bill or the half-dollar coin. If you ever get one of those in real life, like not requesting it from a bank, then it's like, whoa, this doesn't happen every day type of thing. And there was the three-cent coin that got eliminated because it just simply caused too much confusion, like mathematically speaking, because apparently people have more difficulty counting by threes than by counting by ones or twos or fives or tens, which makes sense. And there was a 20-cent coin. This also got eliminated because it caused way too much confusion because it was close to the same size and appearance as the quarter. So yeah, I could see how that could be frustrating and worthy of elimination. So there are more coins than this, but we're just going to stop here. I don't want to take you down the entire rabbit hole. So I even checked the prices of these on eBay. And these are, if you actually see these or come across these, they're actually worth something. So if you see like a three-cent coin at a garage sale or something, don't overlook it. Now, have other countries done this? And the answer is yes, and it's gone just fine. Canada got rid of their penny more than a decade ago. Australia eliminated theirs. New Zealand, they even got rid of their one, two and five-cent coins. Cash transactions in those countries, they just round up or down and digital payments stay exact. So in those countries, again, there are no protests or rebellions or chaos. Okay, so me personally, how do I feel about this, getting rid of the penny? Personally, I'm just being honest. I don't like pennies. My thing is that some pennies are just so disgustingly dirty. Like when I receive pennies as change, yeah, sometimes they look very nice and clean like this. However, most of the time, like, I don't know, maybe I just have bad luck. The pennies that I get as change, they look so disgustingly grimy and dirty. So like, listen, I'm not a germaphobe, but some of them are just so nasty. Like I don't want to carry them around and it's just not worth one cent to me. And they look like they're infected with Ebola. And honestly, I mean, after inflation made the penny irrelevant, like what are pennies good for? Like for me, the only time I go looking for a penny is if I'm in front of like a wishing well or a fountain. Like I'm just being honest because that type of situation, throwing away a quarter, and that would just be too much. That would be tragic because I know the value of money. So me personally, I'm 100% for it. Get rid of the penny. Be my guest. Now, another good question is, should we get rid of the nickel as well? Each nickel cost the U.S. mints 13.78 cents to produce in 2024. So that is a loss of $17.7 million last year for taxpayers just from nickels. So the penny costs 3.69 cents. The nickel costs 13.78 cents to produce. The dime costs under six cents. So the dime is good, you know, at least for now. And I want to show you this. I think that the nickel will be in jeopardy of this continuation as well. So this chart shows you how much it costs to produce a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter over time. It's based off the face value of the coin. So as you can see, it still makes sense to produce the dime and the quarter because the dime costs about six cents to make and the quarter costs about 13 cents to make. So those two, at least for now, you know, they're fine. But the nickel, I'm telling you, it's going to start getting some heat very soon in the near future. That's my opinion. So listen, the penny had a good run for more than 230 years. But now, thanks a lot to inflation, the penny just doesn't make any sense to produce anymore. And my opinion is that inflation is just going to get worse. But let me know what you think. Please subscribe. I thank you for the support. And I wish you a very nice day. Take care.