Day: May 24, 2025

U.S. Mint places final order to end penny production following Trump’s order

DES PLAINES, IL - JULY 06: Pennies lay in a pile July 6, 2006 in Des Plaines, Illinois. According to the U.S. Mint says a penny costs more to make than it's worth, 1.2 cents, prompting some to call for its demise. (Photo Illustration by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)
Pennies lay in a pile July 6, 2006 in Des Plaines, Illinois. (Photo Illustration by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)

OAN Staff James Meyers
9:20 AM – Friday, May 23, 2025

The U.S. Mint has placed its final order for penny blanks and will cease production entirely by early next year, bringing an end to one of the nation’s longest-standing forms of currency, the Treasury Department announced Thursday.

The announcement comes after President Donald Trump stated in February that he had tasked the department to stop producing pennies, due to their high production cost. Pennies cost more to produce than they are worth — literally.

“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump said at the time.

According to the U.S. Mint, in the past 10 years, penny production costs have increased substantially from 1.3 cents per coin to 3.69 cents, skyrocketing 20% in fiscal year 2024 alone.

By cutting the penny, it is projected to bring immediate annual savings of $56 million for the U.S. economy, as more is expected from reduced facility usage and other changes as the coin becomes phased out.

Without enough pennies in circulation, businesses will then have to start rounding prices up or down to the nearest five cents, a similar move to what Canada did when it stopped producing its one cent coin, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While the penny has lost practical value, it still remains the most printed coin in the U.S.

The Mint reported making 3.2 billion of them last year, which is over half of all new coins that were produced. Currently, there are a staggering 114 billion pennies in circulation across the country, according to Mint.

Meanwhile, two bipartisan bills to end penny production have been introduced in Congress so far this year. On May 1st, Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced the “Make Sense Not Cents Act.” A day prior, Representatives Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), along with Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), filed the “Common Cents Act.”

The U.S. penny was one of the first coins produced after the U.S. Mint was established in 1792.

Since its inception, the penny has undergone numerous transformations in design, symbolism, and metallic composition. Originally minted from pure copper, they are now produced using a copper-plated zinc alloy.

Abraham Lincoln’s face was first molded onto the coin in 1909 to honor the 16th president’s 100th birthday.

Correction: This story was updated May 23, 2025 at 11:08 a.m. to correct the year the U.S. Mint was established to 1792.

Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

Victor Davis Hanson: Jake Tapper’s Own ‘Original Sin’

CNN’s Jake Tapper helped promulgate one of the greatest cover-ups in American history. Just because he decided to write a book four years later saying anything to the contrary doesn’t change that. Nothing will, argues Victor Davis Hanson in today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words:” “For the last four years, again and again and again, if anybody questioned the obvious mental decline of Joe Biden—his cognitive difficulties—Jake Tapper, on CNN, Jake Tapper tore them apart.   “The locus classicus was Lara Trump, who said that he's obviously—as early as 2020—in decline. He suggested that she was berating him for a childhood stutter, which was absolutely ridiculous.   “Why didn't Jake Tapper write this a year ago? Because he knows what would've happened. Somebody in the White House would've called up and said, 'Tapper, no one from CNN is going to get a seat at the press conference. There's not going to be any CNN interview.’   “So, he backed down. And now in a very cowardly fashion, now he comes out and he's blaming the White House cover-up. But what he doesn't tell us is that the White House cover-up would have been impossible had not CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NBC, ABC, CBS all conspired with the White House staff to downplay—not just downplay Biden's cognitive decline but attack people.”