{"id":424,"date":"2025-02-14T10:55:40","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T10:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/14\/why-is-donald-trump-discontinuing-the-penny-al-jazeera-english\/"},"modified":"2025-02-14T10:55:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T10:55:40","slug":"why-is-donald-trump-discontinuing-the-penny-al-jazeera-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/14\/why-is-donald-trump-discontinuing-the-penny-al-jazeera-english\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Donald Trump discontinuing the penny? – Al Jazeera English"},"content":{"rendered":"
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United States President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury to stop minting new pennies, reviving an old debate about the value of the one cent coin.<\/p>\n

The penny, Trump argued in a post on his Truth Social platform on February 9, is \u201cwasteful\u201d because the cost to make it far exceeds its currency value.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s rip the waste out of our great nation\u2019s budget, even if it\u2019s a penny at a time,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Why the push to retire the coin?<\/h2>\n

Despite being worth only one cent, each penny costs nearly four cents to produce, according to the US Mint. That\u2019s due to the cost of the raw material \u2013 mostly zinc \u2013 and the moulding process.<\/p>\n

Some 3.2 billion pennies were minted in 2024, meaning a production cost of $12.8bn.<\/p>\n

Centuries of inflation have also made the penny, first minted in 1793, virtually obsolete. It has become so insignificant that it\u2019s no longer even practical for the cheapest retail items\u2014such as a gumball or a single piece of candy.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t want them. They don\u2019t use them,\u201d Larry Jackson, a 65-year-old coin dealer in Atlanta told the Reuters news agency. \u201cThey sock them away in cans and drawers and jars \u2026 Even a 30-pound bag won\u2019t fetch you $50.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, the use of the penny tends to clog up retail transactions. If cashiers can skip counting pennies, they\u2019d save 2.5 seconds per check-out, according to a 2006 study by the National Association of Convenience Stores.<\/p>\n

\"An
An employee rings up sales at a cash register at a Walmart in Los Angeles on Black Friday, on November 29, 2013 [Robyn Beck\/AFP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Is there an argument to keep it?<\/h2>\n

Yes.\u00a0Some penny advocates contend that the currency helps keep prices in check<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Businesses, they argue, will be more likely to round off prices upwards than downwards without the penny. That could have a marginal inflationary impact.<\/p>\n

Additionally, they argue, pennies\u00a0serve as a valuable source of funding for charities: Each individual contribution might be tiny, but it all adds up.<\/p>\n

Others point out that scrapping the coin may force the government to churn out more nickels, an even bigger financial burden. Worth five cents, the nickel costs 13 cents apiece to produce.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, however, most economists say losing the penny would have a negligible effect on consumers. That\u2019s because the vast majority of transactions are already cashless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at some point in history cancelling the penny would have been a bigger deal, but now people don\u2019t even carry them in their pockets,\u201d said economist Sean Snaith. \u201cThey\u2019re largely not in circulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have other countries tried scrapping the penny?<\/h2>\n

Yes, countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands have all phased out their smallest-denomination coins.<\/p>\n

When Canada stopped minting the penny in 2013, it saved an estimated $11m annually, according to the Canadian government. Many retailers began rounding cash purchases to the nearest five-cent mark, while the government collected and recycled the pennies for their copper and zinc content.<\/p>\n

US lawmakers have long advocated for similar measures. Starting in 1989, the late Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe started a decades-long bid to eliminate the penny, introducing several failed bills to scrap it. \u201cThe penny has been a nuisance for years,\u201d he said back in 2006.<\/p>\n