If you haven’t heard recently, the penny has gone extinct! Well, discontinued.
The first penny was created in 1793; now, in 2025, the penny has been retired. The production of the penny was stunted because the one-cent coin was costing the United States more money than it was worth. The penny costs the country approximately 3.7 cents to make. President Donald Trump ordered the Treasury Department in February 2025 to stop production of the penny, and on November 12, 2025, the penny was no longer being minted. This currency change has affected all Americans, such as consumers, employees, businesses, etc. The final coins produced were not put into circulation and instead are going to be auctioned off. Local business employees were eager to share their opinions and thoughts on the extinct penny.
Razzo’s Manager Jori Fleck explains that she supports the discontinuation of the penny because they were a pain and an annoyance. “They have little to no value and cost more to produce than they are worth,” said Jori. It would be much easier for consumers and employees if all products and services were priced in increments of five cents, but as long as there is sales tax in Illinois, that easy solution isn’t going to be productive.
Mockingbird employee Allie Kerwin says that, although the discontinuation of the penny makes sense, “because it costs more to make pennies than what they are actually worth, the government needs to come up with a solution to help businesses,” from falling into debt because of it. To prevent the United States from falling into debt, she suggests that the government “provides money to businesses so that they don’t have to pay for the rounding charges.”
Panera manager Erik Moore says that companies should always round up when they are giving change back to customers, no matter if it is one cent or four cents. “Panera can afford the loss of a couple extra cents; the customers shouldn’t have to pay more than the price of their order just because we can’t provide them with exact change.”
This decision was made because of the cost of production, and many consumers no longer use pennies because of the inconvenience of counting them out and carrying them around.
Businesses are rounding cash transactions to the nearest 5 cents and encouraging card transactions because they are unaffected by this new policy.
Believe it or not, by discontinuing the penny, the Department of Treasury is expected to save 56 million dollars annually in material costs. Because cash transactions are being rounded up to the nearest nickel, it is expected that the Department of Treasury will have a small cost of 6 million dollars annually. Overall, the discontinuation of the penny will save the Department of Treasury and the United States as a whole millions of dollars a year. This will be extremely beneficial for our economy.
After 232 years of producing the penny, the time has come to say goodbye to the shiny copper coin. While this adjustment will take some time to get used to, this change in currency will become beneficial to our economy and our citizens.
