The U.S. House of Representatives has unanimously approved legislation that would permanently end production of the penny for general circulation, moving the iconic one-cent coin closer to disappearing from everyday American commerce.
The bipartisan Common Cents Act would prohibit the U.S. Treasury from producing new pennies for circulation, while still allowing the U.S. Mint to manufacture limited quantities for collectors.
The move comes after the Trump administration ordered the Mint to stop producing pennies in 2025, ending more than two centuries of continuous production. The decision followed years of rising manufacturing costs, with producing a single penny costing taxpayers more than three times its face value.
The new legislation would make that policy permanent, preventing a future administration from simply restarting penny production.
Under the bill, pennies already in circulation would remain legal tender and could continue to be used indefinitely. Businesses would also be permitted to provide exact change when pennies are available.
When exact change is unavailable, however, cash purchases would be rounded to the nearest five cents. Electronic payments — including credit cards, debit cards, checks and gift cards — would continue to be charged to the exact cent.
The Treasury estimates that ending penny production could save taxpayers approximately $56 million annually.
The legislation would also give the Treasury greater flexibility to manufacture nickels using less expensive materials, provided testing shows that the changes would reduce costs without significantly interfering with vending machines and other coin-operated equipment.
The penny has been part of American currency since 1793. President Abraham Lincoln’s image first appeared on the coin in 1909.
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One Response
Get rid of the nickel also. Change money to only be one decimal point. The nickel is also expensive, and rounding money is a very dumb thing to do. Either make things 1 decimal point, or add a decimal point so everything is like gasoline pricing.
Either $3.8 and $2.9 or $3.829 and $2.999 (round up to the nearest 5!).
The current system is written by dumb people. Especially when I can watch an old movie, read an old book, and a penny or a nickel actually had value not that long ago!