As of Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, new pennies are no longer being minted for everyday use. The coins already in circulation — still numbering in the millions remain perfectly legal to spend, reuse and receive as change.
Over the past year, several news sources have reported that the United States has officially stopped producing pennies for circulation. According to AP news, “President Donald Trump ended the penny because it cost too much to make and was no longer useful, leading the U.S. Mint to stop producing it.”
This means that he main motivation behind the decision is nothing new. For years, economists have pointed out that producing the penny costs more than one cent, making it a financial loss for the government. Other countries, such as Canada, have gone through similar transitions, phasing out their lowest-denomination coins once production became impractical.
AP Economics teacher Geoff Beckstrom, who has 21 years of experience, explained the reasoning behind the government’s action.
“From an economic standpoint, the costs of minting pennies and keeping them in circulation now outweigh the benefits to the United States economy or to consumers and businesses of being able to use pennies to pay for things,” Beckstrom said. “People would have to count change less, and transactions might be faster, especially since not many people use pennies to pay for things.”
FHS counselor Eric Medeiros, said they have also noticed how the use of pennies has changed in both everyday life and the economy. From their perspective, the way people handle money now shows how much the role of the penny has declined.
“If we don’t have pennies, it would be really hard to sell something for, let’s say, $2.47 exactly, if you had cash, because then you either couldn’t pay exact change or you couldn’t give exact change,” Medeiros said.
They have pointed out that without exact change, it might be hard to give our prices, and there is a chance If something costs $2.47, we would round it up to $2.50, increasing the total by three cents.
A national economic decision filters down into everyday life. While pennies are not disappearing overnight, their phase-out marks a shift in how Americans handle small change — and reflects a larger trend toward faster, simpler transactions in a mostly cashless world.
