The Treasury Department will follow through on President Donald Trump's order to stop producing pennies, Newsmax has confirmed.
New pennies will cease being put into circulation by early next year, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Businesses eventually will need to begin rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cents due to not enough pennies being available for everyday cash transactions, the Treasury said.
A department spokesperson confirmed the Journal report in an email to Newsmax and said the Treasury has made its final order of penny blanks this month. The U.S. Mint will continue to manufacture pennies while an inventory of penny blanks exists.
The Mint projects an annual savings of $56 million in reduced material costs by ending penny production.
In early February, Trump said he had directed the Treasury to stop minting new pennies, citing the cost of producing the one-cent coin.
"For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Feb. 9. "I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies."
Earlier his month, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., presented bipartisan legislation that would end production of the penny.
The bill states that pennies still in circulation could be used in transactions and considered legal tender and anticipates the move would save nearly $100 million spent on penny minting annually.
In late April, another bipartisan bill was introduced in the House and mandated that all cash transactions be rounded up or down to the nearest 5 cents. Reps. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., and Robert Garcia, R-Calif., co-sponsored the Common Cents Act, which would mandate the U.S. mint to cease producing pennies.
The cost of penny production increased 20% in the 2024 fiscal year, when the federal government lost more than $85 million on the roughly three billion pennies produced.
During the past 10 years, the total production cost of the penny has risen from 1.3 cents to 3.69 cents per penny, Treasury said.
The department estimated that Americans throw away up to $68 million in coins a year.
The U.S. penny was one of the first coins made by the Mint after its establishment in 1792. At the time, its design featured a woman with wind-swept hair. The penny has since shrunk in size, and its composition has changed from pure copper to a mix of zinc and copper.
In 1909, Abraham Lincoln was first featured on the coin in honor of his 100th birthday, according to the Mint.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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