The Wall Street Journal announced today that the penny - which has been part of US currency for more than two-hundred years - will cease production in the coming months.
The article said "the Treasury Department will stop putting new pennies into circulation by early next year. Afterward, there won't be enough pennies to use in everyday cash transactions, and small businesses will need to start rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cents."
The one-cent coin actually costs four cents to make, and is expected to save the US Mint (the coin-producing department inside the Treasury) approximately $56 million in material costs. In 2024, the US government lost more than $85 million on the three billion pennies made.
As a kid, my parents had two coffee cans in their bedroom closet - one for me and one for my younger sister. They would put spare change in each can, and that money might be used for vacation spending, to deposit into the bank or saved for some special purchase. Every so often we would pull the cans down, bring them into the living room and pour the coins out onto the carpet (I can still hear the sound) and spread them out. We would start with the quarters and half-dollar coins (if we had them), then work down. It was always a race to see who could count the fastest and who had the most money.
In reading the article today, I was shocked to see that about 60% of the coins in circulation are sitting in coffee cans and coin jars - not going into car washes and vending machines.
It will be interesting to see what happens going forward... businesses will have to adapt their pricing, banks will have to come up with plans for cash handling, and we will all have to come up with new phrases.
A penny for your thoughts? We'd love to hear your two cents on the matter...