Trump: a penny no longer made is a penny earned
Or perhaps more than a penny is earned by this move of Trump’s:
resident Trump announced Sunday that he asked the Treasury Department to stop producing pennies, calling the 1-cent coin wasteful.
He said in a Truth Social post that he told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to end minting the small-value coins with former President Abraham Lincoln’s image on them.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump said.
The cost of making a penny was nearly 3.7 cents in fiscal 2024, the 19th consecutive fiscal year the coin has cost above face value to make, according to the U.S. Mint’s annual report.
Such a thing would never have occurred to me. But it’s a great idea that’s very easy to understand. I have a sneaking affection for the penny, but I cannot remember the last time I actually used one. They’re not being taken out of circulation, though. It’s just that new ones won’t be produced.
According to this analyst, Trump MUST move quickly because “Biden” has essentially sabotaged the world’s economy.
(He’s not the only one to have issued this warning. )
“No Way To Avoid Pain Of Worldwide Recession” – Ed Dowd Warns Of “Perfect Storm For Trump Admin”—
Key grafs:
“…The new report shows how a weak economy was propped up under the Biden Administration and how a crash, this year, is inevitable.
“….Trump’s policies are going to reverse that all out. . . . “
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/danger-deep-worldwide-recession-2025-ed-dowd
Fasten yet seatbelts…
Modern pennies are mostly zinc with a teensy amount of copper. Does the US Mint have procedures for reclaiming the metals from the tons and tons of pennies that are currently in circulation? Apparently they were in the process of ending their “Mutilated Coin Redemption Program” for replacing damaged pennies.
They’ll probably disappear overnight as everyone starts to hoard them. I was looking ahead in my calendar and saw Daylight Savings begins in a month. I sure hope he scraps that ridiculousness as well, as he said he would.
Ending the time changes would require Congress to do something, always a challenge.
It seems to me that there was talk of ending the penny way back when I was in high school – that was the early 70s. But, it was just talk.
Let’s see if something actually happens this time. Especially, nowadays, it might happen since so many people don’t use cash as much.
I end up with a lot because I am so old fashioned I still use cash and paper checks.
How Much Does it Cost to Produce Coins?
Now, to follow up on Bauxite’s Open Thread February 10, 2025 at 12:41 pm comment…
Let the Nation know we are going to move away from—at least pennies & nickels because they cost more to make than they are worth.
Then say that everything we buy that involves a penny/ies or nickel/s total (ever how to say it) will be rounded off to the next dime or quarter.
Like 1 dollar and 6 cents will cost you 1 dollar and 10 cents. Maybe digital/card payments can be different (?). That 4 cents then goes to a special Save America account. Or ever how something like that would work (?) whilst blaming DEMs and their Swamp on it.
Save your pennies! In a thousand years they’ll be priceless!
“Look at this. It’s worthless – ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless.” archvillain René Emile Belloq, Raiders of the Lost Ark
According to the online inflation calculator, a dime today is equal to a penny in 1965. So a ten is the new one and the one is new dime and the dime is the new penny. Thanks gov.
While I’ve increased my credit card usage a great deal over several years, I still use cash with some frequency. And of course, that means I have a coin tray that fills up periodically as I empty my pockets.
I’ve noticed that just within the last year or so, the number of quarters I’m getting has dropped dramatically, and the number of dimes has gone way up. So I’m guessing that the Mint and banks and vendors have figured out which coins are cost effective.
This article is fun.
https://www.investopedia.com/6-famous-discontinued-and-uncommon-u-s-currency-denominations-4773302
I suggest that if Trump gets rid of the penny, he should immediately start issuing “McKinley’s” and “Clevelands.”
@ Barry > “a crash, this year, is inevitable.”
And the Democrats will blame it all on Trump, as they always blame Republicans who are in office when the Dem chickens come home to roost.
Sometimes the public buys it, usually some don’t and most do.
That’s one reason Trump has to get everything he wants done before the midterms.
@ TommyJay > “the number of quarters I’m getting has dropped dramatically, and the number of dimes has gone way up.”
I suspect the more likely reason is that your cashiers are being told to return X amount in change, and they can figure that out in dimes, nickels and pennies, but not in quarters.
Thanks for the link to rare currencies.
I have a couple of $2 bills, saved some of the new issue quarters for my grandkids.
I was thinking of turning in all my pennies and other coins that have accumulated over the years, but now maybe not.
”The cost of making a penny was nearly 3.7 cents in fiscal 2024, the 19th consecutive fiscal year the coin has cost above face value to make…”
That this cost has nearly quadrupled in only 19 years gives you a decent estimate of the true level of inflation (7.1% average over that time period by this calculation).
As far as the issue of abandoning the penny itself, I’m against it. It’s covering up the symptom instead of treating the disease, which is the Fed devaluing the currency. We should be getting our spending under control and returning the money supply to the proper level so that a penny is worth a penny again. Dropping the penny just hides the problem.
Neo, quoting The Hill: “… in fiscal 2024, the 19th consecutive fiscal year the coin has cost above face value to make, …”
19 years!!! What have the intervening Secretaries of the Treasury been thinking all those years???
And yet it also demonstrates something I have said before about money: it is such a valuable invention that we will put up with a lot of distortion of the money value to avoid having to throw it over for some newer version.
Consider an alternative to metal coins: just print the value on a sheet of hardy cardboard and stamp out the discs, and then claim they are equal in value to the previous metal versions. Who is to argue, really, since the metal value is no longer as issue one way or the other – just a feel good pretense.
Since entitlements are the main driver of our federal budget / debt excesses, I keep hoping Trump will eventually face that reality as well and start proposing some form of bankruptcy proceedings [“I have great experience with using bankruptcy to my advantage…”]. Or I can try to believe that the current efforts are only tackling all of these smaller elements of waste so later he can say “well, we have found all of the easy stuff and we still have a debt problem so now we have to gird our loins for serious corrective measures … etc. etc. ”
AesopFan: “I was thinking of turning in all my pennies and other coins that have accumulated over the years, but now maybe not.” Well, I just found this 15 minute video by Jordan Peterson on “5 Harsh Truths About Decluttering for Seniors That NO ONE Talks About, but You Need to Know” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_zq4DGSP0
It is kind of repetitive, so perhaps listen to the first 3 minutes and the last 4 minutes to gain most of its value?
mkent on February 10, 2025 at 8:32 pm
“… nearly quadrupled in only 19 years…” That sound about right, as elsewhere I saw #’s of a 10 fold increase from 1969 to now. I graduated back then with a BS in engineering, and starting salaries were around $10K, and a Mercedes sedan cost $6.5K. Forward a few decades and graduates are offered $100K and that Mercedes costs $65K.
” It’s covering up the symptom instead of treating the disease, which is the Fed devaluing the currency.” Well, maybe we should be looking to the Congress (aka “our” Congress) to perform their constitutional duties to regulate the value of money, rather than buying our votes. Thus, once again we have met the enegy, and he is us. We can hope the midterms bolster the spine of our Congress critters, or they are replaced, but that is probably not the way to bet vs. history.
I’m not tired of winning yet, despite a few setbacks.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/413606.php
“CBS Poll: Trump Is At Highest Approval Rating of Both Terms; 70% Agree He’s Doing What He Promised to Do
30% are bitter lefties who know damn well he’s doing what he said he was going to do, but they lie to the pollster because they refuse to give Trump credit for anything.”
Well, yes, he’s doing it but they don’t approve – that’s one of the problems with poll questions like this.
Winning-in-waiting is also happening in formerly-Great Britain.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/413610.php
@ R2L > “What have the intervening Secretaries of the Treasury been thinking all those years???”
How to keep their spots on the pig trough, obviously.
As is becoming clear, the Republicans, when holding the executive reins of a presidential administration, could have put a stop to most of the fraud any time they wanted to.
When holding legislative majorities & the presidency, they could have made the reforms permanent.
QED.
The ace-in-the-hole that Trump has been holding this time is the simultaneous backing of genuine conservatives and the richest man in the world.
Plus the targeted the employment of computer geeks and their analytics, but those have been available for decades – at least as long as there have been computerized data systems.
And the accountants we have always with us. 😉
Personal anecdote: AesopSon #4 was not sure in high school what career path he wanted to follow. Being the observant Mom that I was (from time to time anyway), I suggested he take the HS accounting course.
We knew we were on the right track when he told me he was working the un-assigned homework problems!
Joke from a statistician friend:
Q: Do you know what makes statisticians different from accountants?
A: Accountants have personality.
@ R2L > “Jordan Peterson on “5 Harsh Truths About Decluttering for Seniors That NO ONE Talks About, but You Need to Know” —
AesopSpouse recommended that to me yesterday, but I hadn’t gotten around to watching it yet, so I will do that now!
….
I’m at minute 2:00 and he is absolutely correct …. all the way through to the end.
This is the best decluttering advice I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve read a lot of books and blogs on the subject.
Probable because Peterson is both a clinical psychologist AND a senior like us, not just an “organizer.”
Take that Marie Kondo!
I confess to having the “what if I need it later” syndrome, because that has happened to me often enough to have a heavy confirmation bias.
But then, I blame that mind-set on being raised by Depression-era parents.
Also on Brigham Young, who famously advised the Latter-day Saints in pioneer Utah: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
They couldn’t run to Wal-mart to replace things.
Another good tip, by a friend of mine who wrote a book* about it when she was younger, and is the best published resource on the subject, IMO:
If you worry about replacing things (AF: now that we DO have Wal-mart et al.), give yourself an “allowance” of $1000 (if you can) by setting it aside. Toss the things you think (fear?) you might need later, even if you haven’t needed them in the last mumble-mumble years.
Pay yourself out of that fund to replace them. She claims she hasn’t spent more than $100 dollars over the last 40 years or so.
One other good tip I read from a professional declutterer: take pictures of the things that are part of your past, but not part of your future, and discard the items themselves.
From Peterson, I will add: write down the stories to go with the pictures.
For the things being saved for kids and grandkids, I have an ongoing email thread with pictures and “Does anyone want this for their inheritance?” before I get rid of it.
We are actually in the process of getting rid of stuff, but I also threaten my kids that if they aren’t nice to us, we will leave everything for them to deal with…and I will hide cash money randomly in the books (at least 3000 on the shelves and in boxes).
*The book, more useful for younger folks and families, but good for down-sizing seniors, was written quite a while ago, but is still useful, and (surprisingly) available.
I gave copies to all my kids, and friends’ kids when they married.
https://www.amazon.com/Totally-Organized-Easy-Use-Techniques-ebook/dp/B00669IUO2
Totally Organized: Easy-to-Use Techniques for Getting Control of Your Time and Your Home by Bonnie McCullough
As a senior systems architect, I used my college accounting far more than I used anything else from school. The higher you go the more finance stuff you have to do. I told my wife yesterday that I wish I was 22 again and working for DOGE. Or SpaceX.
”As is becoming clear, the Republicans, when holding the executive reins of a presidential administration, could have put a stop to most of the fraud any time they wanted to.”
No, they couldn’t. The only Republican president to hold office since Obama put this fraud in place has been Trump. If you want to blame Republican presidents for this, blame Trump. And only Trump.
Anyone else remember the old Johnson Smith mail order novelty catalog? They listed a “1942 Steel Penny … No steel pennies were made in 1942, so if this one is real, it is worth a fortune! And it is! … Price $1.00”