President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he told the Treasury Department to stop minting pennies to cut down on costly government waste.
Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, noting that pennies cost more than double the amount to mint than they are worth.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US 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,” Trump posted Sunday night.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) program, run by Elon Musk, first flagged the cost of minting a penny last month.
“The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost US taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023,” DOGE posted on X. “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 cost of producing all coins increased across the board in the last fiscal year, according to the 2024 annual report from the U.S. Mint.
“The penny’s unit cost increased 20.2 percent, the nickel’s unit cost increased by 19.4 percent, the dime’s unit cost increased by 8.7 percent, and the quarter-dollar’s unit cost increased by 26.2 percent,” the U.S. Mint reported. “The unit cost for pennies (3.69 cents) and nickels (13.78 cents) remained above face value for the 19th consecutive fiscal year.”
If Trump were to move to get rid of the penny entirely, he would likely need Congressional approval.
“The process of discontinuing the penny in the U.S. 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,” said economics professor Robert K. Triest, according to The Associated Press.
Led by Musk, DOGE has pushed to cut spending across the federal government. For example, the Trump administration slashed the size and scope of the U.S. Agency for International Development after Musk pointed out ideologically driven spending programs. DOGE is currently looking at both the Department of Education and FEMA.
