The production of new pennies beginning in late 2022, and mint the last batch of pennies on April 1, 2023.
The final batch of pennies will be released in proof sets which will be auctioned off to coin collectors with the proceeds going toward our national debt.
The last run will be limited to 50,000 proof sets, and opening bidding is expected to start at $179.99, which is affordable, considering you will own a piece of US numismatic history.
It costs more than 1 cent to produce a penny.
On average, pennies cost just over 2 cents to make, making penny production a losing proposition, especially when the US Mint produces billions of pennies annually.
A penny just doesn’t buy what it used to.
It will likely take several years of living without pennies before we fully understand the impact of removing coins from circulation.
Pennies will remain legal tender, but it will be hard to find stores willing to accept them after April 1, 2023, for two reasons.
The first and most obvious reason stores will stop providing pennies as change is because the US Mint will impose additional handling fees for purchasing or processing rolls of pennies.
Finally, the US Mint will institute a penny buyback incentive.
Starting in late 2022, the US Government will begin “Pennies for Freedom,” a penny reclamation campaign designed to collect the estimated 23 trillion unused pennies sitting in people’s homes and coin jars.
The pennies will then be melted and the copper will be used for green energy projects throughout the US. This is part of the Biden Administration’s plans for reducing US dependence on foreign energy.
We are moving toward a cashless society and most transactions are handled electronically with credit cards, ATM cards, peer to peer purchasing systems such as Venmo or Zelle, or even with an old-fashioned check. The emergence of Bitcoin, Etherium, and other cryptocurrencies has also been cited as a growing reason for the decline of the penny. So eliminating the penny won’t actually affect most people.
For people who insist on paying cash, the US Mint recommends that stores round up or down to the nearest nickel.
Note: As a side effect, expect state and local sales taxes to increase to round up to the nearest nickel as well to make accounting easier for stores and cashiers.
Zinc, a major component of U.S. cents minted after mid-1982, is toxic in large quantities. Swallowing such a coin, which is 97.5% zinc, can cause damage to the stomach lining because of the high solubility of the zinc ion in the acidic stomach. Coins are the most commonly ingested foreign body in children but generally are allowed to pass spontaneously unless the patient is symptomatic. Zinc toxicity, mostly in the form of the ingestion of U.S. pennies minted after 1982, is commonly fatal in dogs where it causes a severe hemolytic anemia. It is also highly toxic in pet parrots and can often be fatal.
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