The Cost of Minting Coins
Bottom Line: Among the many ways the Trump administration is seeking to save taxpayers money, is through the production of money or the lack thereof as the case now happens to be with the penny. As President Trump noted in announcing the administration's policy to end the production of pennies... For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time. What President Trump said is understated.
Over the past year the average cost to produce a penny was 3.07 cents. There are a lot of ways the federal government creates a negative taxpayer ROI, but perhaps none that are done so directly. But it wasn’t just the penny that led to the Treasury taking a hit. In total, the US Treasury lost $179 million in the production of coins last year. That’s largely due to the nickel being a money loser too. Here’s the cost of production for each coin over the previous government fiscal year:
- Penny: 3.07 cents
- Nickel: 11.51 cents
- Dime: 5.3 cents
- Quarter: 11.6 cents
- Half Dollar: 26 cents
So, if the penny should stop being produced due to a negative value proposition, at a minimum the nickel should go too – as it also costs taxpayers twice as much to produce as it’s worth. There’s also a bit of irony that the dime comes with less than half of the production cost of a nickel but is worth twice as much. No word from President Trump as to if the nickel will be the next to go but it should and there perhaps should also be a conversation about whether the composition of the metals in remaining coins should change to help reduce the overall expense of production.