The U.S. Mint and Treasury Department have confirmed that the penny is on its last legs as the former recently made its final order of penny blanks, write Fatima Hussein and Alan Suderman for 6abc via AP.
The plan is to phase out pennies by next year by no longer producing the coin once the last order runs out.
According to the Treasury, this is due to the cost to make pennies having markedly increased by upward of 20 percent in 2024.
The Treasury expects that by stopping the penny’s production, it will immediately save $56 million in reduced material costs annually.
About 114 billion pennies are currently in circulation in the United States.
Philadelphia is home to where the first U.S. Mint was founded in 1792. It is also one of only two mints in the nation that produces pennies for circulation. The other is Denver.
Pennies are the most popular coin, as the U.S. Mint reported making 3.2 billion of them in 2024, more than half of all new coins made last year.
While the high production cost is a concern, advocates for the penny cite its uselessness in charity drives as one of the reasons to keep it around.
Read more about the likely end of pennies at 6abc via AP.
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