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The US just produced its last penny after a more than 200-year run
The Treasury Department has ordered its last delivery of blank pennies.
(
Saul Loeb
/
AFP
)
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No more pennies: In big change, Treasury will stop minting them
In a penny-pinching move, the U.S. Mint has produced its last one-cent coin.
The final penny was minted in Philadelphia Wednesday, 232 years after the first penny rolled off the production line. The government decided to stop making new pennies because each one costs nearly 4 cents to produce. The move is expected to save about $56 million a year.
If you have a jar of pennies on your dresser, or a few stuck in your couch cushions, don't worry. They're still perfectly legal for making payments. But of the more than $1 billion worth of pennies in circulation, most never circulate. And it was costing the government a lot of money to keep making more of them.
Some restaurants and retailers are already struggling with a shortage of pennies. The phase-out may require businesses to round prices up or down to the nearest nickel, although the growing popularity of non-cash payments makes that less of a headache. Fewer than one in five payments are made with cash, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
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Canada, New Zealand and Australia have also eliminated their one-cent coins.
The penny was introduced in 1793
The U.S. began minting pennies in 1793, the year after Congress authorized the Mint. President Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be featured on a coin, starting in 1909, the centennial of his birth.
Carl Sandberg wrote at the time, "The common, homely face of "Honest Abe" will look good on the penny, the coin of the common folk from whom he came and to whom he belongs."
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But Lincoln is also on $5 bill.
Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., suggested during a hearing earlier this year that phasing out the penny could increase demand for nickels. Minting nickels is also a money-loser for the government, since the five-cent coins cost about 14 cents each.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told lawmakers that the administration believes it can break even on nickel production by changing the composition of the coins.
"I will point out that the dime is very profitable," the secretary added.
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