If you have a penny in your pocket, it may soon become a collector’s item.
Nearly three months after President Donald Trump called for the U.S. Treasury to stop minting pennies, bipartisan legislation is being introduced to do just that, Spectrum News has learned.
Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., are co-sponsoring the Common Cents Act, which is being introduced Wednesday. It calls for the U.S. mint to stop producing pennies and for all cash transactions to be rounded up or down to the nearest five cents.
“It's not controversial. It makes common sense. Why wouldn't we do it?” McClain said in a statement to Spectrum News.
Garcia is one of the president’s loudest critics, but he says doing away with the cent is, well, common sense.
“I've talked for a long time about transitioning away from the cent and the U.S. penny,” Garica told Spectrum News. “[It] actually costs us more to produce the penny than the actual cent it’s worth.”
The U.S. Mint reported in 2024 it cost the government 3.69 cents to produce every penny. The mint produced 3.2 billion pennies last year, reporting a loss of over $85 million. McClain says stopping the production of the penny comes down to saving American taxpayers money.
“We need to find every opportunity for savings that we can. So this was kind of an easy one, and it's gotten bipartisan support. So I think that's a positive thing. We just have to find savings wherever we can find savings,” she said.
Earlier this year, President Trump posted on social media that “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 nation's budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” the post continued.
It remains unclear whether the president can unilaterally order the mint to stop producing a coin. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution authorizes Congress “to coin money,” and the Coinage Act of 1792 directs the mint how to operate and what to produce. But some legal scholars have suggested the president has that power, since the law gives the Treasury Secretary the authority to mint and issue coins “in amounts the secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States.”
Regardless of whether or not Congress must weigh in on the matter, Garcia says he believes the bill will be passed.
“I think we're at the point now where we can move forward on that goal,” said Garcia, who said the bill was already in the works before the president posted about it on social media, and a spokesperson for McClain said the chairwoman’s office had been working closely with the White House on the matter.
The bill also has bipartisan support in the Senate. Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. are leading the measure in the upper chamber.
“The fiscal reality is undeniable: the U.S. Mint spends three cents to produce each one-cent coin. With a $36 trillion national debt, we have to implement meaningful opportunities to reduce costs, update our currency system, and codify the elimination of government inefficiencies. It just makes cents!” said Lummis in a statement first shared with Spectrum News.
“The penny is outdated and inefficient and no longer serves the needs of our economy,” Gillibrand added. “By suspending its production, we can reduce government spending, streamline transactions and move toward a more practical financial system. It’s time to invest in a future that works for the 21st century economy, and that starts with suspending production of the penny.”
The Common Cents Act is not the first time that lawmakers have tried to get rid of the penny. In 2017, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced the COINS act to eliminate the minting of the pennies and suggest the dollar be switched from paper notes to a metal coin. Before that, another Arizonan, Rep. Jim Hayes, introduced the Price Rounding Act, calling for cash purchases to be rounded to the nearest nickel. Neither bill found success, but McClain feels that this time will be different.
“This is a no-brainer – this is a great example of where people can work in a bipartisan fashion to actually get something that makes sense done,” McClain told us. “We should be celebrating this – this is one of the ways that Congress should work.”