U.S. News, February 2025
President Donald Trump has set his eyes on a new target in his pursuit of cutting government spending: the penny. “For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump posted on social media on Sunday. “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.”
While Trump hasn’t been outspoken on the topic before, his new Department of Government Efficiency did target the penny in a social media post last month. “The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost US taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023,” it posted. “The Mint produced over 4.5 billion pennies in FY2023, around 40% of the 11.4 billion coins for circulation produced.”
