The United States Treasury Department has confirmed that the humble one-cent coin – the first version of which entered circulation in 1793 – is to be phased out.
The BBC reports that, in February, President Donald Trump told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to stop minting the coins, calling them “wasteful”.
A month earlier, Elon Musk’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, better known as Doge, drew attention in an X post to the cost of minting pennies – more than three times more than the coin itself is worth.
The cost of producing the penny, according to the Treasury, has risen over the past decade from 1.3 cents to 3.69 cents per coin.
The Mint estimates that stopping production will result in an immediate annual saving of $56m in reduced material costs.
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