Penny debate in the United States

Other countries have also withdrawn coins no longer worth producing, such as Canada ending production of the Canadian penny in 2012.

[1][a] On February 9, 2025, President Donald Trump said he instructed Scott Bessent, the Secretary of the Treasury, to halt production of the penny.

[2] In 1990, United States Representative Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) introduced the Price Rounding Act of 1989, H.R.

The bill died at the end of the 115th Congress with no hearings held by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

[9] On 9 February 2025, President Donald Trump said he had ordered the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending.

[33] Also, the mining of zinc and copper causes toxic pollution and is especially undesirable when considering the valuable metals being used to produce a coin with little utility.

As of 2024, nickels cost $0.1378 per coin to produce and distribute,[34] providing an argument for elimination similar to the penny's production at a loss.

The current face value of a nickel is also well below that which the last remaining lowest-denomination coin (the penny) held at the time of the half-cent's elimination in 1857.

In some cases, while the nominal value of the coin may be smaller than that of a US cent, the purchasing power may be higher: On April 17, 2007, a Department of the Treasury regulation went into effect prohibiting the treatment, melting, or mass export of pennies and nickels.