Farewell penny

Vaհe H Apelian 

Farewell penny.

 You served us splendidly. Today Wednesday November 12, 2025, by the order of president Trump, the U.S Treasury stopped minting you any  longer. 

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post about seigniorage, which, is the profit made by a government by issuing currency. Notably, the difference between the face value of coins and their production costs. Yes, not all currencies make a profit to the government. According to a report in Coinnews.net, dated February 7, 2020 by Mike Unser, “FY 2019, to make, administer and distribute the 1-cent coin eased to 1.99 cents form 2.06 cents.” But, at the present U.S. Treasury said rising production costs and rapidly changing consumer habits and technology had made production of pennies "financially untenable" and unnecessary, noting that it costs 3.69 cents to make each penny. 

Let us face it. The “lowly penny” is not only a monetary tender. It also evokes tender sentiments. I bet many of us have picked a penny we have come across somewhere and have set it aside or collected pennies in a jar. I have. Penny has its honored place in American culture. A penny left on the headstone lets the deceased soldier's family know that someone stopped by to pay respect. There are so many sayings referencing penny, such as “penny saved is penny earned”, “penny-wise, dollar-foolish”, and many, many and many more. 

The penny will not be minted any longer. But that does not mean that it will just disappear from our hearts and minds. Saving a penny is the hallmark of American saving. Just the other day, the groceries we purchased ended in 9s, because of the penny we saved on each item. Here are the actual prices: 7.29, 4,49, 299, 5.59, 6.99, 9,89, 3,49, 9.99, 4.99, 17.99,, 18,99, 8,99.

President Trump phasing the penny, is a double jeopardy for shoppers like us. Not only the prices of the groceries are escalating under his watch, he has the audacity of taking away from us the penny we were saving and depriving us from having an earned a penny by simply having saved a penny.

It was not only the groceries we were saving, but we also were saving on hardware items. The hardware stores had been promoting that they were helping us save a penny. Check the snap shots of some items I saw the other day. They attest to our saving. I am counting on them to continue of saving us a penny.

So long penny. While these Christmas decorations are all smiles because of the penny they are saving us, but this president has even snatched that innocent pleasure away from us, ordinary folks. 

So long penny and thank you for your service.