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President Trump has ordered the U.S. Treasury to axe the “wasteful” penny during a social media rant while watching the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
“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 U.S. Treasury to stop producing new pennies”, he wrote in an 8:30 p.m. Truth Social post Sunday.
Trump fired the demand citing the rising costs attributed to the one-cent coin – a longstanding debate that was spotlighted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency on X last month. Musk’s team of DOGE geniuses have reportedly identified and cut more than $1 billion in federal spending since it began pillaging government departments.
“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time”, Trump added in the Truth post.
At present, there are estimated to be around 250 billion pennies in circulation in the U.S. and the symbolic coin was first issued in 1793.
But dismally in 2024, the U.S. Mint announced that each one-cent penny cost 3.69 cents to manufacture – a price that amounts to over three and a half times the coin’s face value.
The Treasury Department also stated that costs had been driven up since the previous year with the penny’s unit cost increasing by 20.2 percent, the nickel by 19.4 percent, the dime 8.7 percent, and the quarter-dollar by 26.2 percent.
However, this came in tandem with a reported loss of $85.3 million in the 2024 fiscal year and a revelation that “the unit cost for pennies (3.69 cents) and nickels (13.78 cents) remained above face value for the 19th consecutive fiscal year.”
Like many of Trump’s elaborate calls for reform, it is unclear whether he will be able to follow through with his demands without facing difficult obstacles from Congress as they control specifications such as the size and metal content of coins.
Lawmakers may be forced to pass legislation on cash transactions unable to be divided by the next lowest denomination – the five-cent coin, according to Fortune. In the past, the legislature has discussed the premise of rounding prices up or down to the nearest five cents.
Trump’s involvement of Musk in ransacking federal departments while they trace financial holes in the system has attracted waves of widespread criticism in recent weeks. Primarily, due to its muddied roster of staff, who have made several daring attempts to claim authority and directed expeditious cuts across the board – and DOGE doesn’t appear to be halting its efforts anytime soon.
