Trump just made a major decision.
President Trump is taking a bold step to curb wasteful government spending by halting the production of pennies. On Sunday night, the 47th president announced via Truth Social that he had instructed the U.S. Department of Treasury to cease minting the 1-cent coin, citing its high production costs.
“For too long, we’ve been minting pennies that cost more than two cents each to make,” Trump wrote. “It’s time to stop this waste and get our budget in order, even if it’s just by saving a penny at a time.”
This move comes as part of Trump’s larger effort to eliminate waste and inefficiency in the federal government. Working alongside tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the Trump administration is focused on cutting costs and optimizing government operations. According to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), it currently costs taxpayers more than three cents to produce a single penny, totaling over $179 million in fiscal year 2023 alone.
In 2024, the U.S. Mint estimated that each penny costs 3.07 cents to produce. Despite this, over 4.5 billion pennies were minted in the previous year, making up a significant portion of the 11.4 billion coins produced for circulation. As a result, taxpayers are footing the bill for a coin that costs more to produce than it is worth.
A 2022 poll found that 58% of American voters supported stopping the minting of pennies, echoing long-standing frustration with the wastefulness of the coin. Previous efforts to eliminate the penny have fallen short, such as the 1990 proposal by former Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) to round prices to the nearest nickel, or Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2017 attempt to pause penny production for a decade to evaluate its practicality.
With this latest move, President Trump is leading the charge to streamline government spending and put an end to a decades-old wasteful practice, further fulfilling his promise to bring fiscal responsibility back to Washington.