President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is investigating eliminating penny production to save taxpayers money. Elon Musk, the department’s head, figures it costs three cents to make a single penny—not very efficient!
Cost
In a post on X, the group announced that a penny now costs three cents to make—triple its value. That means taxpayers paid $179 million in fiscal year 2023.
It’s unclear whether it would advise permanently killing off the penny or halting or trimming its production. Some advisors suggested adding a cheaper metal to the penny’s manufacture.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Mint decreased penny production between 2023 and 2024 by nearly 29 percent. Additionally, the U.S. Mint data from 2024 showed a fourth straight year of declining coin production, according to CoinNews.net.
DOGE Job
DOGE has been tasked with coming up with recommendations on how to cut federal spending. While Trump has pledged to save taxpayers money with initiatives like DOGE, his most crucial mandate from voters was for him to get food and gas prices lowered.
Other Nations
Other countries have killed off their one-cent coins, including Canada, which stopped producing one-cent coins in 2012. However, a 2018 analysis from the Atlantic Economic Journal found that because most grocery store prices end in 9, Canadians spent about $3.27 million more in Canadian dollars at grocery stores, with prices rounded up to the nearest nickel.
