The US Mint in Philadelphia is set to press its last circulating penny on Wednesday, following President Donald Trump's order to cancel the one-cent coin due to rising production costs. The cost to mint a single penny has climbed to nearly four cents, making its one-cent face value increasingly obsolete.
The Philadelphia Mint has been producing pennies since 1793, a year after the Coinage Act was passed by Congress. Today, billions of pennies remain in circulation, but they are rarely essential for financial transactions in the modern digital economy. Trump described the situation as 'wasteful' in a February social media post, noting that the US has 'minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents.'
The phase-out has sparked nostalgia among collectors who view pennies as lucky or fun to collect, but retailers have voiced concerns over the abrupt transition and lack of federal guidance on handling transactions. Some businesses have rounded prices down, requested exact change, or offered incentives like free drinks for penny exchanges. Jeff Lenard of the National Association of Convenience Stores said, 'We have been advocating abolition of the penny for 30 years. But this is not the way we wanted it to go.'
Banks have begun rationing penny supplies, a paradoxical outcome given the effort to address what many see as a glut of the coins. Over the past century, about half of all coins produced at US Mints in Philadelphia and Denver have been pennies. The Treasury Department expects to save $56 million annually in material costs by ceasing production. However, the penny still has a better production-cost-to-value ratio than the nickel, which costs nearly 14 cents to produce, compared to the dime at under six cents and the quarter at nearly 15 cents.
In 1793, a penny could buy a biscuit, a candle, or a piece of candy. Today, most pennies sit idle in drawers or jars, often discarded or kept as lucky charms.
