This post summarizes the cost associated in producing today US Coinage.  The pictures are from the Littleton Coin Company and show the Penny thru the years.  It starts out with a commentary by Mike Maharrey, a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He starts his article with a little personal touch.  When I was a little kid, one of the highlights of a trip out with my grandmother was getting a penny to stick in the gumball machine.

Back in the early 1970s, a penny would get me several small gumballs or one giant one – depending on the machine.     Good luck getting a handful of gumballs for a penny today. You’ll need at least a dime, and more likely a quarter, to stick in that gumball machine.

And pretty soon, you won’t even be able to find a penny. President Donald Trump has announced the demise of the venerable 1-cent coin, saying he has directed the U.S. Treasury to stop minting them.

“For far too long, the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!”

Trump went on to say he is going to rip the waste out of the U.S. budget “even if it’s a penny at a time.”  According to the U.S. Mint, it costs 3.69 cents to mint and distribute one penny.  In 2024, the mint produced 3.2 billion pennies and lost about $85.3 million in the process. That was over half of the new coins minted last year.

Several countries, including Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the Netherlands, have already ditched their smallest denomination coins.  When Canada phased out its penny about 12 years ago, businesses were urged to round prices up or down to the nearest nickel. Electronic transactions continued to be billed to the penny.

As of 2023, about 16 percent of transactions in the U.S. were made in cash.

What Happened to the Penny?

If you wonder why the penny is going the way of the dodo bird, look no further than the gumball machine.  A penny simply isn’t worth anything anymore. But why?  Because the government is destroying your money.  Based on the CPI, prices have increased by over 713 percent since 1970. That penny gumball I bought when I was a kid would cost about 8.1 cents today.

You can read more about this in the conclusion of his article here:  What the Heck happened to the Penny?

Here are links to four other articles written regarding the subject of the Cost to produced today’s US Currency.  To summarize, here are the costs for producing various coins in fiscal year 2024:

• Penny: 3.69 cents

• Nickel: 13.78 cents

• Dime: 5.30 cents

• Quarter: 11.63 cents

• Half Dollar: 25.98 cents

These articles also explain that the costs cover everything from raw materials to facility costs, minting labor, and other direct costs.

The metals required to produce these coins are predominantly copper and nickel, with the penny being made from a copper-coated zinc planchet.

APMEX

USA TODAY

 COINNEWS

 UNIVERSITY of VIRGINIA