The NYT continued: “Because these replacement pennies will themselves not be spent, they will need to be replaced with new pennies that will also not be spent, and so will have to be replaced with new pennies that will not be spent, which will have to be replaced by new pennies (that will not be spent, and so will have to be replaced).
What’s more, last year marked the 19th consecutive fiscal year that the penny’s production cost had outpaced its face value, according to the Mint, and came at a time when circulating revenue was down 42.1 percent to $553.3 million, with a 23.4 percent or $9.7 million decrease in penny revenue contributing to that total.
While it is generally assumed that the Federal Reserve holds responsibility for determining the country’s monetary needs, Section 5111 of Title 31 of the U.S. Code – as the NYT investigation discovered – leaves the matter of minting and issuing coins in the hands of the Treasury Secretary, a position currently occupied by recent Trump appointee Scott Bessent, suggesting an instant stop to the coin’s production could be ordered without involving Congress.
As a result of this nonsensical but tireless demand, an estimated 240 billion pennies are thought to be out there in the wild in the United States, enough to give 724 (or $7.24) to each citizen and, according to a 2019 study, were even a fraction of those to be suddenly reintroduced to recirculation en masse, the result would be “logistically unmanageable.”.
U.S. Mint director Edmund Moy also implored lawmakers during his tenure between 2006 and 2011 to pass legislation ordering the end of the penny, which was likewise ignored, while President Barack Obama noted in 2013 that the coin’s persistence was “a good metaphor for some of the larger problems” of the U.S. government.
