In the United States, the issuance of the 1-cent (penny) coin with a 232-year history was officially halted on the 12th local time. The U.S. Mint completed production of the final 1-cent coins in Philadelphia that day. The move follows President Donald Trump's February order to stop minting, citing that production expense was nearly four times the face value (1 cent).
According to AP and others, on this day Treasurer Brandon Beach pressed the button to strike the last portrait of Abraham Lincoln to be engraved on the penny and minted five 1-cent coins. Beach said, "God bless America. We will save $56 million in taxpayer money." The obverse of the five special final coins produced that day bears an omega (Ω) mark above Lincoln's shoulder to symbolize the end. Instead of circulating, the coins will be put up for auction.
The last case of the United States halting coin issuance was the abolition of the half-cent (0.5 cent) in 1857. The penny was used for more than 170 years longer than that and is disappearing into history after 232 years. The penny was first issued in 1793 under the 1792 Coinage Act, led by the first secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. The initial obverse design featured Lady Liberty. In 1909, marking the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, the coin began using Lincoln's portrait. On the reverse, designs such as wheat ears and the Lincoln Memorial were used, and more recently, the Union shield design.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that in its early days the penny had enough real value to buy penny candy for 1 cent. For more than 200 years after that, the penny served as a lubricant at the very bottom of the U.S. economy. Its cultural symbolism was also significant. In American literature and fashion, the penny was repeatedly used as a source of inspiration. The penny naturally found its way into countless English idioms such as "A penny for your thoughts," "Pennies from heaven" (an unexpected windfall), and "Penny-pincher" (a miser). The penny loafer fashion, in which college students tucked a penny into the toe of their shoes, also defined an era.
But as inflation continued and coin value kept falling, at some point the penny became a nuisance. The Treasury estimates that about 300 billion pennies are currently in circulation. However, according to the Federal Reserve (Fed), the share of cash use plunged from 31% in 2016 to 16% in 2023. USA Today said, "Most of the pennies in circulation are effectively sleeping in drawers or car cup holders." The Fed believes that an average of $60 to $90 in coins per U.S. household is left unused and idle.
In the end, in February, President Trump said on social media that penny production was "too wasteful" and directed the Treasury to halt it. The move followed a recommendation from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), then led by Elon Musk, in January this year.
The U.S. Mint's annual report shows that the minting expense for one penny is 3.69 cents (about 48 won). The Mint produced more than 3 billion pennies in fiscal year 2024 alone. According to Treasury accounting, the expense savings from stopping penny production amount to $56 million a year (about 73 billion won).
Since 1982, the 1-cent coin has been made of zinc (97.5%) with copper plating (2.5%) to cut expense. But the price of zinc, the main material, surged after the pandemic, hitting a record high in 2022. Zinc futures, which traded around $2,200 per ton in 2019, were around $3,000 per ton as of November this year.
The price of copper, which makes up only 2.5%, rose even faster. Demand for copper is soaring in line with the pace of growth in new industries such as electric vehicles and AI data centers. It hit record highs, surpassing $5.60 per pound in July this year. As of November, it is still above $5 per pound. Since the Trump administration imposed an additional 50% tariff on imported copper in August this year, the uptrend has steepened.
Across the United States, arbitrage crimes targeting soaring copper prices are also rampant. The carrier AT&T said it suffered $40 million (about 5.2 billion won) in losses this year alone due to copper cable theft. Theft of copper products in transit rose nearly fivefold year over year in the third quarter of 2025. In an editorial that day, The Washington Post (WP) wrote, "The comedy of making coins that cost more than their value is over," while adding, "You can no longer buy anything for 1 cent."
Although penny production has stopped, it still retains legal tender status. For this reason, the U.S. retail front line worries about confusion from a "penny drought." In the United States, most price tags at front-line supermarkets end in 99 cents. When combined with state sales tax, checkout prices are set in 1-cent increments. If paying with cash, a penny is needed in most cases.
From the moment the news first broke that penny production would stop, the U.S. retail industry argued that if the supply of pennies is cut off, "rounding" to the nearest 5 cents—rounding up or down—would be necessary for cash transactions. Currently, at least 10 jurisdictions, including New York, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C., require payment of "exact change." Retailers cannot arbitrarily round prices up or down just because the penny supply is cut off.
In the legal community, concerns have been raised that it could provide grounds for lawsuits alleging different prices for card and cash payments. For example, if a consumer buys a $2.49 item and the store rounds up to $2.50 on the grounds that it has no coins to give as change, that would result in a different price than for card users and violate the law.
According to CNBC, the West Coast convenience store chain Kwik Trip, considering this point, decided to round down to the nearest 5-cent increment when paying cash in cases where change would require pennies. The loss to the company from this policy is estimated at several million dollars a year.
The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and NACS are urging Congress to pass federal legislation to allow rounding "before the pennies dry up." Mark Weller, a director at Americans for Common Cents, said in a CNN interview, "Canada, which abolished the penny in 2012, and Australia, which stopped producing pennies in 1992, had clear government guidelines, but in the United States the entirety of the guidance was a single social media post by President Trump."