Pennies

[David Lockmiller]

I woke up thinking about pennies. How many pennies are minted now compared to years ago? If most people are like me, I use a debit card for my payment transactions for the most part.

So, I googled a question: How many pennies does the U.S. produce?

Russ Wiles
Arizona Republic
February 12, 2025

The answer was: Last year, the Mint churned out 5.61 billion general-circulation coins, of which 3.23 billion were pennies. But coin production has been dropping sharply anyway, from around 15 billion coins produced annually as recent as four or five years ago.

That reflects the rise of other forms of payment — credit and debit cards along with PayPal, Zelle, Venmo and other such services.

The Lincoln one-cent coin could be scrapped, with Trump ordering the Treasury Department and U.S. Mint to stop producing the coins. That followed an assertion by Elon Musk of the Department of Government Efficiency that halting production might save the government around $180 million annually.

The typical penny is around 97.5% zinc and only 2.5% copper. Since 1982, copper-plated pennies have been made primarily from zinc.

Ironically, the other mainstream coins are primarily made from copper, with roughly 75% content for nickels and more than 90% for dimes, quarters and half dollars.

[Personal thought: Perhaps if you are the richest man in the world, or the village idiot, you might suggest using less copper in nickels, dimes, quarters and half dollars in order to save the government money.]

The penny debate has arisen before, and skeptics have worried that businesses would tend to “round up” their prices to the closest nickel if the penny was eliminated, worsening inflation. That remains a possibility, and lower-income consumers could be hurt a bit more if that happens.