Credit: Olivia Green

WSPN’s Olivia Green discusses the impact of Trump’s decision to stop minting pennies.

On Feb. 10, President Donald Trump ordered the Treasury Department to halt the production of new pennies, his reason being that the cost of minting pennies is higher than the coin’s actual face value.

While pennies are not the most practical form of payment, Trump should not have the authority to make this decision on his own. Pennies have been minted every year since 1793. They are the most persistent coin you’ll ever find, in that the U.S. mint has never stopped making them – not even during World War II, when the U.S. simply changed the type of metal used.

This coin has been made for hundreds of years and survived the horrors of the World Wars, and yet Trump has ended its production with a snap of his fingers.

Last year, pennies cost about 3.7 cents to mint a penny that’s only worth one cent. So, in that regard, Trump is correct. However, he is choosing to overlook several other issues with the U.S. currency. If we’re questioning costs now, what about the nickel? Last year, it cost the mint 14 cents to make each nickel, with its actual value being five cents. At this point, Trump might as well abolish the U.S. currency altogether, and we can go back to the barter system.

It seems like Trump is cherry-picking currency issues instead of confronting the real problem head-on: people just aren’t using change. Back in the days when prices were lower, it made sense to carry around coins. But nowadays, it’s extraordinarily rare that one will buy something under five dollars, let alone one dollar.

Furthermore, pennies carry significant cultural value. They have a rich history after centuries in circulation embody the spirit of America, bearing the face of the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln. It feels so wrong to end something that’s been a tradition for so long.

However, I do acknowledge that the U.S. will save a considerable amount of money by relying on pennies already in circulation instead of creating new ones. In order to maintain the tradition of making pennies without overdoing it, I propose that the U.S. make a small batch of pennies each year, costing them substantially less while still upholding the tradition.

Currently, the U.S. mint produces billions of pennies each year. If this number were reduced to a million and sold to collectors or even circulated, it would preserve the cultural aspects of the coin without ending it entirely. This approach would address the cost issue without taking the drastic step of simply cancelling the penny production entirely.

Trump’s attempt to terminate such a long-standing tradition is concerning. Why should one individual be able to determine the fate of our currency? At the very least, there should be a formal vote rather than a unilateral executive order.