UKDM
President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency is looking into stopping production of the penny to save taxpayers money.
In a post on X Tuesday night, the Elon Musk-run group pointed out that a penny now costs three cents to make – triple its value.
That cost taxpayers a whopping $179 million in fiscal year 2023, the post said. More
Thank God. I’m tired of those hings floating around in my pockets. It cost’s about 3 cents to make a penny by the way. About 7 cents to make a nickel.
Drilling holes in nickels is still cheaper than buying washers.
They should just make all coins out of paper to match the rest of our “m0nEy”.
we’ll be nickle and dimed to death
I still remember getting penny bubble gum balls from the gum machine before they hollowed it out.
It’s the retailers who insist on keeping the penny so they can set prices up to 99 cents and psychologically we still think the item is a buck cheaper. Few people make change anymore so rounding up or down shouldn’t be too challenging.
Only costs 3 cents to make a penny?
That’s probably the most efficient expenditure of money by the FedGov.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
Let’s deal with some reality. It only costs more to produce because the Federal Reserve has destroyed the purchasing power of our money since 1913. If the penny vanishes, NO RETAILER will ROUND DOWN. They will ALL ROUND UP – more instant inflation. Abolish the Federal Reserve. Restore sound money back by precious metals. Address the ROOT CAUSE rather than simply applying yet another worthless band aid.
Long overdue. A waste of copper and money.
@MrLiberty — Amen to ALL that.
If we’re going to keep being saddled with the penny, it should be made of plastic. There’s no need for backward compatibility because there aren’t any machines that take pennies any more. Hell, lots of vending machines don’t even take coins: bills and credit/debit cards only, and some don’t even take bills.
Making them out of plastic would also be poking our thumb in the eye of the enviroweenies. Plastic comes from OIL!
@TheMule — A penny is 97.5% zinc and only 2.5% copper. But you’re right, it’s still a waste of Cu.
it cost 3 cents to make a penny and 11 cents to make a nickle.
Today’s pennies are mostly zinc with a copper coat.
Pennies made before 1982 have 2.97 cents of copper in them, and some people are hoarding them- getting large quantities from banks and sorting through them. Each penny saved triples the money invested. The less valuable pennies are recirculated and more pennies are obtained for sorting.
At present it is against the law to destroy US money including coinage, such as by smelting, etc.
I was stationed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Our base did NOT use pennies. I was shocked at the idea, but it worked great and was so sensible! Your groceries or whatever you bought were still priced to the penny, same as always. Then, when you total the bill, only the final total is rounded to the nearest nickel. For 2 cents or less, round down to the nearest nickel. For 4 cents or more, round up. I don’t recall what they did when the total ended in 3 cents. That will give everybody something to argue about! (Actually, I think 3 cents was rounded up.)
Why not just make a penny worth something again?
Obviously, the old adage of a penny for your thoughts is no longer valid. And does anyone even bother to pick up pennies if they see one or more on the ground anymore? See a penny, pick it up and all the day you’ll have good luck doesn’t apply anymore either. And if you remember penny candy like me, you’re obviously an old fart.
We just call it Obama money, pretty worthless
However when you grind them to a fine powder and add two more ingredients, they make a tremendous thermite. Example, a penny (copper plated zinc) finely ground and mixed with sulfur makes an outstanding July 4 green fireworks. Much cheaper than you can buy separate chemicals.
I don’t know how getting rig of the penny will effect retailers from using 99 cents considering they have to add sales tax to it anyway.
Canada got rid of the penny a few years ago and there was an established rounding scheme. It should be noted that if you weren’t paying with cash, you paid the non-rounded amount.
I have to say that it was nice not dealing with pennies. When we escaped Trudeauistan, we had to get used to the useless copper-colored coins again. In fact, I like the one and two dollar coins as well.
A penny saved is a penny spurned.
Uncle Al- Self check out machines still take pennies and likely wouldn’t be able to handle plastic. Again, anything other than making our currency SOUND AGAIN, is just political and propaganda masturbation.
“Obviously, the old adage of a penny for your thoughts is no longer valid.”
Or…
Your thoughts are more valuable now since pennies are collector items.
Is this one of those things where they’re testing to see how easily we conform to eradicating coins, and then next it’ll be digital wallets?
Not so fast.
Then end the sales tax and stop with the $12.68 crap. lookin’ at you, Walmart. lol
Yeah, I know, the .68 cents has a purpose to track the percentage of discounts for retailers. You can’t just outlaw the penny and not deal with discount retailers.
And Abigail made a good observation.
What am I going to do with all of these counterfeit pennies I’ve been making for the last two years?
Sell them on Mercari
Quit coming out with a zillion variations of the quarter. Just think of the expense associated with the bureaucracy involved in the designs, approving the designs, making the dies, inspecting and validating the final product, inventory, distribution, it goes on forever. It’s insanity.
While I’m on the soapbox, quit redesigning our paper money to “reduce counterfeiting”. The old bills are still legal tender you dipshits.
Someone high up in the food chain’s son-in-law probably makes the special inks and ribbons and such. You can pretty much bet on that.
I have a jar of pennys to dig into once in a great while when I need more change in my coin purse in my car.
So, I will keep them for my siblings grand and great grandchildren to sell when they become collectables!