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| Economy | |
| US Treasury gives final decisions on pennies…. and it creates a new problem | |
| 2025-05-23 | |
| [Daily Mail, where America gets its news] One cent coins will stop entering circulation next year. After more than two centuries the US government has finally decided to kill the penny. The Treasury Department will stop minting new pennies and putting them in to circulation by early next year. Soon there will not be enough pennies in circulation to fulfil cash transactions. As a result, businesses will have to round up or round down their prices to the nearest five cents, the Treasury said in a statement. The penny currently costs more than four times its value to make and the Treasury lost $85 million minting the coins last year alone.
'If you get rid of the penny, it will increase the amount of nickels,' Rhett Jeppson, a former chief executive of the US Mint said. 'You lose more on a nickel than you do on a penny,' Jeppson told the New York Times. Nickels, worth five cents, are also a loss-maker for the treasury, leaving an $18 million hole from their production last year. The problem could be exacerbated by the end of the penny because demand for nickels is likely to shoot up in their place. Since the Treasury loses more per coin on nickels - they cost around 14 cents to make - an increase in their production to meet demand could soon outweigh any savings made by axing the penny. The decision to stop making pennies comes after years of bipartisan efforts to eradicate the coins. President Obama was critical of the penny during his time in the White House. Most recently, President Trump asked the Treasury to halt penny production in a social media post in February. 'For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents,' he wrote on Truth Social. | |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #8 My thoughts will now cost five cents. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2025-05-23 11:06 |
| #7 I have $600 billion in Zimbabwean bucks "A pentillion here, a pentillion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." |
| Posted by: SteveS 2025-05-23 10:48 |
| #6 |
| Posted by: Gleng Whaick2262 2025-05-23 09:59 |
| #5 I have $600 billion in Zimbabwean bucks but they expired in 2004… |
| Posted by: Beavis 2025-05-23 09:43 |
| #4 Somewhere in my Dad's WW-II era collection, I still have a few DM 100,000 1923 German banknotes. I remember in 1968 trying to use one of them in Eppelheim just outside PHV, to buy some fireworks. The store owner busted out laughing, then said he'd give me 2 marks for it (50 cents in those days). |
| Posted by: NN2N1 2025-05-23 08:08 |
| #3 ..paper is cheap. They keep this up, they can sell watermarked paper and we can print our own money. We've been living with gas at three digits beyond the period for all our lives. The solution that no one wants is to issue new currency just like other countries have had to do when they inflated their money. We sort of did that when we shifted out of copper pennies and silver coins. Now that slight of hand is beyond repeat. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2025-05-23 07:03 |
| #2 How soon with the dollar join the penny ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2025-05-23 06:27 |
| #1 We all actually know what's going to happen in the next few weeks. A massive penny shortage develops, as people will start hoarding them. Which the Gov will use as an excuse to move us to a digital currency. Then Government can control, track, or turn off how we spend every nickel and dime. Like Canada does, its citizens now. Will the various Local, state and federal Gov penny taxes becoming Nickel or Dime. Like the gas price having 9/10's BS now Prediction: Mass Protests, with some new stupid Protest slogan like: Save the Penny, it makes sense or something equally as stupid.☺ |
| Posted by: NN2N1 2025-05-23 06:12 |
