Just to clarify the details regarding the cost and savings:
"Mint operations are funded through the Mint Public Enterprise Fund (PEF), 31 U.S.C. § 5136. The Mint generates revenue through the sale of circulating coins to the Federal Reserve Banks (FRB), numismatic products to the public, and bullion coins to authorized purchasers. All circulating and numismatic operating expenses, along with capital investments incurred for the Mint’s operations and programs, are paid out of the PEF. By law, all funds in the PEF are available without fiscal year limitation. Revenues determined to be in excess of the amount required by the PEF are transferred to the United States Treasury General Fund."
The mint makes money (both literally and figuratively). Any current losses from producing pennies are overshadowed by profits from paper dollars, commemorative coins, proof sets, etc.
The embedded image is of a penny on the planet Mars.
Reposted to add some new information from Bloomberg:
Portland Mint, sells old pennies in bulk — 40,000 pounds (18,100 kilograms) at a time — to investors angling to profit on the copper that makes up 95% of the coins minted before 1983. A cache of one-cent pieces from Portland Mint with a face value of roughly $60,000 sells for about $120,000.The wager is that those older pennies contain copper that would be worth about $180,000 at current prices. One snag: It’s illegal to melt a mass of Lincoln cents to harvest the metal. But penny hoarders gained fresh hope that their bets will one day pay off when President Donald Trump said this week that he ordered the Treasury secretary to stop minting the coins...“Collectors and investors speculate the value of copper will go up,” said Ted Ancher, director of numismatics at Apmex, a precious metals dealer in Oklahoma City that has been selling copper pennies for years. “That is the primary reason they buy copper cents.”Customers favor “the ’82 and earlier stuff,” said Dennis Steinmetz, founder of Steinmetz Coins & Currency in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The company offers 5,000 pennies – with a $50 face value – for $79.“As you may know you may not currently melt these,” Steinmetz’s website says. “However if the government authorizes melting you will be way ahead.”
More at the link.
Get me Harriet Tubman $20s first please.
ReplyDeleteJust want to point out that France beat the US with putting an American Black (and a Polish) woman on their regular currency.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EuroCoins/comments/1bcbw8v/french_euro_coins_2024_10c_20c_50c_european/
Given what money is (the root of...), it makes no sense to decorate cash with anything but portraits of old white male sinners. Ms. Tubman on a bankroll? She'd roll over in her grave.
DeleteA penny costs 3.7 cents to make; a nickel is 13.8 cents, a dime is 5.76 cents, and quarter is 14.678 cents (per latest USMint report).
ReplyDeleteAustralia stopped making 1c and 2c coins in 1990, and they were withdrawn from circulation in 1992. The 5c and 10c coins are likely to disappear in the next few years, according to the head of the Australian Mint. They aren't particularly useful any more. Only about 10% of transactions are still made with cash of any kind, so all coins and notes are probably on the way out.
ReplyDelete1. I don't care if the Mint is overall profitable; if a "product line" is as unprofitable as the penny is, there had better be a good reason for continuing it, and I have yet to hear one. In fact, it's not just the cost, it's also the waste and environmental damage related to mining. Pennies are literal trash, not worth picking off the ground. This change is long overdue, and the fact that Trump stumbled upon it is less proof that he has good ideas and more that Congress hasn't been doing its job for a long time, and Trump is just lawless enough to push through what many people have known is a good idea for a long time. (I find myself shocked to be on the same side as the president on anything. If only he'd use this lawless streak to do other things that an overwhelming majority of Americans support. Anyway...)
ReplyDelete2. I've known for a while that the nickel is also unprofitable, but if it's as bad as anon says, they should definitely go too. Why not knock a whole decimal place off of our transactions?
3. Why stop there? Coins have a longer life than bills; many nations have already gone to larger denomination coins, such as the 1 and 2 Euro coins. I say bring back the Sacagawea dollar.
Also, I would hope that the Mint would be profitable. They're literally printing money.
DeleteWhy do people think that the government needs to be profitable?
DeleteThe whole point of a government is to share cost of things that are by nature unprofitable. With some that is obvious, like national defense and fire protection. With others, it's less so.
But really, can we stop with this nonsense that the government needs to be run like profitable business? Or worse, a start-up?
That said, fuck the small coins. Get me first a $20 Harriet Tubman bill, and then we can talk about 1$ and 2$ coins like in other adult countries.
I agree with you, but generally the military, the post office, etc. serve the public good. Again, my opinion is that not only are they not worth the cost to the public, but they're actively detrimental to our wellbeing.
DeleteMultiple unrelated things can be true at the same time.
Delete* The government is a service, not a for-profit business. If it were a business, we wouldn't need businesses and end up with communism.
* Small coinage is stupid and should be abolished.
* Due to corrupt lobbying, the US government has not made many service improvements that other governments have made. There should be no coins under a quarter, but there should be $1 and $2 coins, plastic bills and not only white dudes on the money.
(We agree)
I read somewhere that the "American Zinc Lobby" has historically thrown its weight against efforts to stop making the penny, but I'm not sure how credible that is, since the amount involved seems quite small.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I'm no expert but it seems a large proportion of US zinc ore gets refined in Canada. Imagine what reciprocal tariffs (Canadian tariffs on US ore coming into Canada, then US tariffed zinc coming back into America) would do to prices.
New York Timews magazine had a cover article on the penny in the fall 2024. including discussion about attempts to cease penny production in Obama presidency and earlier. back in the days when Congress made the laws and the Executive branch enforced them. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/magazine/worthless-pennies-united-states-economy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wU4.T03g.0rIX4VuvbqKH&smid=url-share
ReplyDeletelong ago, i read that US had discontinued other coinage in our past history. the half penny was discontinued at a time when it was worth about Sixteen cents ( from that old article. likely would be equiv. to a larger value in 2025) this implies that pennies, Nickels and Dimes could all be eliminated in our current era. hell, shopping at ALDI , where customers "rent " the carts with a quarter coin to unlock it, over 50% of my visits, i find others coins left behind in the carts. Likely, quarters could be abandoned along witg pennies, nickels and dimes. we citizens already discard them, warehouse them & dont spend them now. make half dollar coins of a size to easily, comfortably be carried in pocket. as others mention, 1&2 dollar coins of a modest pocketable size and start paper money with 5 dollar bills.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the rounding of the penny will be done the smart way (a la Canada) or the dumb way (Amerikanski)?
ReplyDelete