Trump directed the Treasury Department and its secretary, Scott Bessent, to stop making new pennies on grounds that the coin’s production costs too much for its face value.
“For far too long, the United States has minted pennies that literally cost us more than two cents apiece. What a waste!” Trump wrote in a posting on Truth Social. “I hereby order my Secretary of the Treasury to no longer produce any new pennies. Let’s tear the fat – even if just a penny – out of the great American Budget.”
This is the latest in a series of rapid policy changes for Trump’s new administration, after executive orders and proclamations on everything from immigration to diversity policies – even a proposed renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
While Trump made no mention of axing the penny on the campaign trail, Elon Musk’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency had floated the idea last month, citing soaring production costs.
According to the U.S. Mint, the government lost $85.3 million in the 2024 fiscal year producing nearly 3.2 billion pennies, with each one costing nearly 3.7 cents to make up from 3.1 cents the previous year.
Can Trump Abolish the Penny?
It’s not certain whether Trump would have the ability to unilaterally kill the penny. Congress dictates the parameters of coinage, including their size and content of metal. Some analysts said there are ways around that legally.
The mechanics of eliminating the penny in the U.S. are a little murky,” said Robert K. Triest, an economics professor at Northeastern University. “It would likely take an act of Congress, but the Secretary of the Treasury might be able to simply stop minting new pennies.
Over the years, Congress has entertained eliminating the penny through legislation that would suspend its production, phase it out of circulation, and force business to round prices off to the nearest five-cent level. Proponents of abolition mention the country would save money by not having to mint pennies anymore, hasten cash transaction lines, and that countries like Canada have abolished their version of the one-cent coin in 2012.
If successful, this would not be the first time the U.S. had retired a low-value coin: Congress discontinued the half-cent piece back in 1857.
The Trump administration has taken a more aggressive approach to cutting costs, and Musk has led efforts to cut $2 trillion in federal spending by targeting whole agencies and reductions in the federal workforce. The penny is now the latest casualty of their mission to curb government waste.
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