Alas, poor penny! We knew you well
We may be witnessing the end of an era. Seeing the death of an institution.
President Donald Trump announced on Sunday he has ordered U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to have the U.S. Mint stop producing pennies.
Gone will be the days of penny candy; my age may be showing, but I’m sure that must still exist somewhere. Gone 99 cent sales.
But the effects go far deeper than that.
An entire cottage industry exists solely focused on the flattening and stamping of pennies for novelty purposes.
The website pennypresses.net, a totally unofficial source with no credibility beyond a passion for ravaging innocent pennies, features a database of more than 3,000 locations where those inclined can have a penny crushed by a machine for an extremely budget friendly keepsake. For those of a more introvert disposition, they offer prepressed pennies for sale that can be delivered direct to your home. Pennypresses.com offers the same service for those inclined.
Meanwhile, there exists an entire market sector based on the production of machines to squash pennies into amusing forms. Penny Machines USA and The Penny Press Machine Co. both produce customizable options to purchase machinery for all your penny pressing needs.
On a more serious note, at least in Pennsylvania, it raises questions of how sales tax would be accommodated by retailers. State sales tax sits at 6 cents per dollar of product cost. I somehow doubt that would be rounded down. Rounding up to break even would result in a four cent increase in prices.
While the idea of discontinuing the penny may seem laughable, Trump does have a solid economic basis for his efforts. The cost of zinc by weight far exceeds the value of the penny, which mostly consists of the metal coated by a layer of copper. According to The Associated Press, it currently costs about 4 cents to produce a single penny.
According to the U.S. Mint, it produced just over 3.2 million pennies in 2024 with a face value of $32,252. Meanwhile, the production cost to produce those coins, at current cost, is about $129,008 dollars. Economically, pennies are a losing proposition.
In fact, because of the simple economic reality, invariably bills are introduced in Congress seeking to discontinue the penny, much to the dismay of “big zinc” lobbyists.
While there is a question as to whether Trump can simply order a stop to penny production or whether it would take an act of Congress, there is precedent. In 1857, due to the rising cost of copper, Congress discontinued the half-cent piece.
One must wonder, however, how long it will be until the administration sets its sights on the nickel, which costs about 14 cents to produce.
Regardless of whether the penny fades into history, at least the railroad industry will be able to rest easier in the knowledge that the long-concerning risk of train derailments from young children looking to gain a handful of flattened coins has passed.
— JP
