1990-issue US Penny obverse 2

Image: 1990-issue US Penny obverse 2, Daniel Schwen. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

On November 12, 2025, at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, the presses struck the last pennies made for circulation. The coin had been in production in some form since 1793. It ended for a plain reason: for years, every new penny had cost more than a cent to make.

That is a strange idea at first. A coin is supposed to be worth what it says. But a coin is also a small piece of metal that has to be bought, stamped, counted and shipped, and those costs follow the same inflation as everything else.

The numbers

The Mint reports its unit costs every year. In its 2024 annual report, the cost to make and distribute one penny was about 3.69 cents. The nickel was worse in absolute terms, at roughly 13.78 cents for a five-cent coin. The Mint had lost money on both coins for close to two decades.

The penny's makeup had already changed once to fight this. Before 1982, pennies were 95 percent copper. When copper prices climbed, the Mint switched to a zinc core with a thin copper plating, about 97.5 percent zinc by weight. That bought time. It did not stop zinc, labor, energy and transport from getting more expensive.

Why face value and cost drift apart

A coin's face value is fixed by law. Its cost is not. Think of a coin like a postage stamp printed with a price that can never change, while the paper, ink and delivery keep getting more expensive. Eventually the stamp costs more to print than it's worth.

This is the same force we measure on this site in other forms. A dollar in 1970 bought far more than a dollar does now; using the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices are roughly eight times higher than they were then. If you want the mechanics, see how inflation calculators actually work. The penny is what happens when a fixed number runs into that rising tide for long enough.

What happens at the register now

Pennies did not stop being money. They remain legal tender, and the billions already in circulation can still be spent. What changed is the supply. As new pennies stopped arriving, some banks and stores began running short, and many businesses started rounding cash totals to the nearest five cents.

Rounding usually applies only to the final total of a cash purchase, not to each item, and card or electronic payments are still charged to the exact cent. Under the common approach, totals ending in 1 or 2 cents round down to 0, 3 or 4 round up to 5, 6 or 7 round down to 5, and 8 or 9 round up to the next 10. Over many purchases the ups and downs roughly even out.

You might be thinking this is how stores quietly take your money. Canada offers a useful comparison. It stopped making pennies in 2012 and began rounding cash transactions in 2013, and the government's guidance there likewise rounds only cash totals. Rounding in both directions keeps it close to neutral.

What this tells you about money worth

The end of the penny is a small, visible example of a larger rule: nominal values stay put while real costs move. Your paycheck, your savings account and your rent work the same way, just more slowly. We explain that difference in purchasing power versus nominal dollars.

It also shows that inflation shows up first at the edges, in the smallest coins, the shrinking package and the item that quietly disappears. Our piece on shrinkflation covers another version of the same squeeze.

This is general information, not financial advice, and rounding rules can vary by state and by store.

Your next step: empty the coin jar this week, count what's in it, and take it to a bank or a coin machine before the pennies get any harder to spend.

Sources

  • United States Mint, 2024 Annual Report: https://www.usmint.gov/about/reports
  • U.S. Department of the Treasury, penny production announcement (2025): https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases
  • United States Mint, coin specifications: https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coins-and-medals/circulating-coins/penny
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI inflation calculator: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
  • Government of Canada, phasing out the penny: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/programs/about-canada-revenue-agency-cra/phasing-penny.html