Penny is canceled, canceled, retired, pitched. Under President Trump’s order, the U.S. Mint will halt production. How soon will we reach a penniless future?
Penny shortages are hurting retailers and banks across the U.S.
Banks and businesses across the country have struggled to find pennies since President Trump halted production earlier this year.
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Thanks to Penny’s impending demise, changes are coming in the way we make change.
President Donald Trump ordered the Treasury Department to stop minting pennies in February. His assertion that the penny costs more to mint than it is worth echoes the January 2025 recommendation by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), then led by Elon Musk, to phase out the penny because producing 4.5 billion pennies in 2023 would cost taxpayers more than $179 million.
This is not an alternative fact. The U.S. Mint states in its annual report that the cost of manufacturing a penny is 3.69 cents.
Some stores are already running out of pennies, forcing customers to round up or down cash transactions to the nearest nickel if they don’t have change. The coin shortage is also affecting some McDonald’s stores.
“Some companies are asking cash-paying customers to voluntarily round up their contributions to avoid having to pay change and comply with state and local laws, while others are rounding up contributions for everyone (not just those who pay cash),” Brandon Sheridan, an associate professor of economics at Elon University, said in a statement.
Truncation “becomes more costly for companies over time,” Sheridan said. Retailers have told Congressional leaders that the federal law is needed because at least 10 states (and some local governments) have laws against rounding transactions to the nearest nickel.
Thousands of retailers and stores across the U.S. are without pennies, leaving “companies to try to solve the complex problems that have arisen as coins become scarce,” Austin Jensen, senior vice president of government affairs at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, said in a statement to USA TODAY. “Congress understands the magnitude of the problem, and we are optimistic that once government resumes, lawmakers will take up this issue and provide businesses with the clarity they need.”
The challenges go beyond individual cash transactions. A June 2025 brief from accounting, tax and consulting firm PwC notes that retailers need to assess how currency changes will impact their point-of-sale systems and how they calculate, collect and report sales tax. “The lack of enforceable federal or state regulations regarding rounding and transaction processing creates compliance risks, especially for multistate operations. Inconsistent practices can increase exposure to sales tax audits,” the report said.
Will the penny disappear? Can I still use Penny?
Even if the U.S. Mint stops producing pennies, that doesn’t mean they’ll disappear anytime soon. According to the American Bankers Association, there are approximately 250 billion pennies in circulation today.
Bill Maurer, dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of California, Irvine and director of the UCI Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion, said “there will still be a lot of pennies, but their circulation will slow down,” since nearly two-thirds of the approximately 165 Federal Reserve coin terminal facilities that circulate coins are no longer accepting or distributing pennies.
“As coin terminals move closer to the penny, the circulation of the penny has slowed. But the penny remains legal tender,” Maurer said in an email exchange.
But the penny shortage “will likely accelerate the decline in penny usage,” Sheridan said. “We also expect more and more businesses to move to cashless models over the next 10 years, but in the meantime we will strongly encourage the use of cards. This will eliminate the need for businesses to round transactions to the nearest nickel.”
Speaking of nickel, that coin may also have a long lifespan. According to the U.S. Mint, nickels cost more than 13 cents to produce each.
But there are reasons that may not happen soon, Sheridan says. “The cost to consumers of rounding transactions to the nearest nickel is estimated to be approximately $6 million, and the cost of rounding transactions to the nearest 10 cents is nearly $56 million,” he said. “So the cost-benefit analysis for taxpayers is not as clear-cut for a nickel as it is for a penny.”
Who first suggested getting rid of the penny?
Trump is not the first to suggest selling the penny. U.S. Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona and Representative James Hayes of Louisiana co-sponsored the Price Rounding Act of 1989. This abolished the penny and required prices to be rounded to the nearest 5 cents. Neither that bill nor several subsequent ones passed.
Other proposed measures include the Currency Optimization Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act of 2017, introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.). The bill proposes to halt the minting of pennies for 10 years, after which the Government Accountability Office will consider whether to restart minting the pennies or keep the suspension in place, according to The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network.
When was the first penny made?
The first pennies produced by the United States Mint after its founding in 1792 featured a picture of a woman symbolizing freedom. In 1909, to commemorate President Abraham Lincoln’s 100th birthday, Lincoln became the first president to be depicted on U.S. coins.
Is the penny worth more now?
Not necessarily. This spring’s headlines touted “$124 million worth of Lincoln Wheat Pennies available for purchase at home,” and many people scavenged their coin stockpiles. But most pennies are worth a penny, or sometimes more.
The most valuable penny, which is extremely rare but may still be in circulation, is a 1943 Lincoln Wheat Copper Penny. Some of it was created by chance when the U.S. Mint was supposed to use zinc to conserve copper for World War II activities, John Feigenbaum, publisher of the rare coin price guide Gray Sheet, recently told USA TODAY.
Depending on condition, a 1943 Lincoln wheat penny in circulation today is probably worth between $100,000 and $250,000, said Feigenbaum, who is also executive director of the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a nonprofit organization made up of many of the nation’s rare coin experts.
You may not have a precious penny, but the coins lying around in cups, drawers, and various containers around your house have value. According to the Federal Reserve, the average household has between $60 and $90 worth of coins left unattended at home. If you take it to a bank or coin exchange office, you can get a nice prize.
Contributor: USA TODAY’s Daniel de Visse.
Mike Snyder is a national trends news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, and X, and email him at: mike snyder & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com
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