Whether exiled to the floor board of your car, lodged under a couch cushion, or wasting away in your family’s communal change jar, America’s ubiquitous copper-colored coin is no longer an efficient form of payment. Inflation and technology have increasingly rendered the humble penny useless, and it is past time that we acknowledge a simple fact: it’s time to get rid of the penny.
Here’s the harsh truth: every penny costs the U.S. mint more than three times its value to produce. (RELATED: Could Ending ‘Wasteful’ Penny Production Be Trump’a Most Bipartisan Move Yet?)
The United States wastes $85 million annually to keep the penny in circulation, despite the fact that most of them may be given out as change but never actually spent. Since they fall out of circulation, the Mint must produce more pennies, continuing this wasteful cycle. Conservative estimates suggest 240 billion pennies have fallen out of circulation— that’s nearly $2.5 billion worth, or roughly 724 pennies per American citizen. And if Americans scrounged around their houses, found these pennies, and returned even a modest portion to circulation, Mint officials admit the coins would overrun our vaults. The U.S. would be physically unable to hold these heavy coins (weighing in at around 660,000 tons).
The penny’s inefficiency and cost to produce can no longer be ignored.
Recently, President Trump issued an executive order directing the Treasury to finally halt production of the penny, renewing a decades-long call to finally rid ourselves of this government waste. As usual, he is right.
For decades now, Americans have pointed out the penny’s flaw.
In 1976, then-Treasury Secretary William Simon urged Congress to abandon the penny, a sentiment later echoed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, President Obama, and countless others. Our Canadian neighbors rid themselves of their version of the penny more than a decade ago with no adverse economic effects and no additional financial burden on low-income families. And yet, in the face of our neighbor’s success and a lasting cry for change, the American penny has endured, almost as sure as death and taxes.
This time must be different. American currency should reflect how the average American uses money today, not decades’ old practices.
I am partnering with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to introduce the Common Cents Act, bipartisan legislation to finally suspend production of the penny. This practical measure will save American taxpayers millions annually while streamlining our currency system for the modern economy. Electronic transactions will still calculate to the penny, while cash transactions will simply round to the nearest nickel.
President Trump was correct when he declared that the time has come to fully end production of the penny. It’s about saving American taxpayers money.
We can no longer continue squandering taxpayer dollars to produce something that essentially serves no value for most Americans. While we celebrate the penny’s long and storied history, it is time we let go of our one-cent coin.
U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis is a Republican from Wyoming who sits on the Senate Banking, Commerce, and Environment and Public Works committees.
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