Feb. 10 (UPI) — President Donald Trump late Sunday said he has directed the secretary of the Treasury to stop producing new pennies.
“For too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is wasteful!” he said in a post to his Truth Social media platform.
“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.”
Congress first authorized the penny in 1792.
During the last fiscal year, the U.S. Mint circulated nearly 3.2 billion pennies, reporting a loss of $85.3 million, which is a slight decrease from the $86 million it lost in the penny a year prior.
Meanwhile, a single penny last year cost the mint $0.037 to make, up from $0.0307 in 2023 and $0.027 in 2022.
According to the U.S. Congressional Service, studies have found that only only one-third of pennies circulate.
This has prompted legislative attempts to either temporarily suspend the penny’s production or eliminate it entirely.
Proponents of its elimination argue its potential savings, while opponents warn that it could lead to a potential price shift on cash transactions, the service said.
Australia, Canada and New Zealand are among nations to have stopped minting one-cent coins.
The announcement is the latest from the Trump administration concerning its effort to reduce spending and cut what it sees as waste from the U.S. budget.
It also comes as the controversial Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency has been going through the federal government to hunt out spending and regulations it seemingly deems wasteful, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, a key soft power mechanism of the U.S. government that has been all but dismantled under the Trump administration.