Trump's plan to remove the penny may have stunned consumers more than any other legislative idea of the second Trump term. In a February 2025 Trust Social post, President Trump revealed why the penny is under attack:
"Pennies have cost us more than 2 cents for too long. So wasteful! I ordered my US Treasury Secretary to stop minting pennies. Let's cut waste from our nation's budget, even a cent at a time."
While the penny costs more to create than it's worth, eradicating it has serious drawbacks that make many experts wary of Trump's plan. According to the 2024 U.S. Mint annual report, a penny costs 3.69 cents to create, which makes you question how much it costs to make all the other circulating coins in U.S. money.
Pennies and nickels (which cost 13.78 cents to create) are the only coins that cost above their face value to make, and as of 2024, they have done so for 19 fiscal years. The dime, quarter, and half-dollar coin cost 5.76, 14.68, and 33.97 cents, respectively.
How dime pennies matter While producing a dime costs six cents compared to the coin's 10 cent value, other variables affect circulation. First, the U.S. Mint revealed that dimes and nickels lost 11.1% of their fiscal year 2024 circulation shipments.
Only 14.3% of 2024 coins were dimes. Back to the implausible idea of abolishing pennies, penny circulation rose to 54% of the coin mix in 2024.
Circulating revenue, the U.S. Mint's revenue from coin production and distribution, fell 42.1% from 2023 to $182.6 million, mostly due to a 68.5% drop in dime revenue.
Coin prices may decline due to causes such as decreased demand, rising metal prices, and seigniorage, the gap between the face value and production costs. As cash currency demand fall and production costs rise, the U.S. Mint will continue to see circulation shipments and profits decline.