Fincher: The demise of the penny is upon us

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“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” – Yogi Berra

A few days ago my coworker was telling me how she made a purchase at a fast-food restaurant and was owed $1.03 in change.

She got the dollar but was left in want of the three pennies. After regaining the attention of the cashier who made her change, all my coworker ended up getting was a shrug and response that there were not any pennies in the cash register.

While missing out on three cents will not send my coworker to debtor’s prison, she remains miffed about the principle of the exchange. You too might have run into this situation if you often use cash for purchases.

This is because 2026 will be the first year since 1792, according to the United States Mint, without the mass production of the penny – or the cent as the Mint prefers to call it.

This came after President Donald Trump ordered penny production to be halted not long after taking office last year. While a Trump declaration can sometimes leave you scratching your head, this one was a prudent decision.

Trump’s reasoning involved the rising costs of penny production. The U.S. Treasury Department stated the cost of producing one cent had risen to 3.69 cents in 2025.

That sounds like a terrible return on investment, but, of course, the value of the penny is that it is not spent just once and retired but can remain in circulation for decades before wearing out.

Not producing pennies will indeed save taxpayer dollars – the U.S. Mint estimates around $56 million in the materials for penny production alone – but that is only a drop in the bucket of the entire federal budget.

Really the main reason for dropping the penny is its purchasing power is just so small due to the gradual inflation of money over time.

Pennies, unfortunately, have become a bit of an annoyance in modern-day life.

I worked as a cashier in high school around the turn of the millennium, and even back then people would often poke through the change in their possession to pass off the pennies in order to receive back only silver-colored coins.

I keep a little loose change in the cupholder of my car, and I now find myself doing the same thing when making cash purchases.

Besides the inconvenience factor, spending habits are also changing as people making cashless purchases is an accelerating nationwide trend. A couple of factors drive this movement. One is the convenience of not having to carry cash while the other is many businesses and venues are moving toward using electronic transactions only.

Having the government strike pennies only for the coins to remain in one place and not circulate through many different cash register drawers and pocketbooks makes less and less sense over time.

But what about my coworker who is still missing her three cents? Fortunately, many states – including Alabama, which passed legislation this year – have created new laws for rounding cash purchases when pennies would normally be involved.

Alabama’s law requires a transaction cost or the change owed from a transaction ending with one or two cents to round down to the closest zero, ending with six or seven cents to round down to the closest five, ending with three or four cents to round up to the closest five and ending with eight or nine cents to round up to the closest zero.

In theory, the number of times the cost is rounded down or rounded up should even out. However, costs will still be calculated to the penny when cashless transactions, such as payments by credit or debit card and by check, are performed.

The nickel will gradually become the lowest value of hard currency as pennies are phased out of circulation over time.

While dropping the penny is the right policy choice, it does not make it any less sad to see it go. Pennies are synonymous with financial discipline, wisdom and diligence.

It will feel odd to tell my grandchildren Ben Franklin’s old proverb, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” and have them blankly stare back at me because they have no context for what it means.

Up until 1857, the U.S. Mint struck half-cent coins – a historical nugget I knew nothing about until doing a little research for this article.

I can only wonder if the sentient, floating cloud of energy that writes this column 170 years from now will understand the concept of the penny. Perhaps it will learn after getting shorted a $10,000 monetary unit at its local recharging station.

Brandon Fincher is an academic journal editor at Auburn University. He lives in Opelika with his wife, daughter and two Labrador retrievers. You can find his writing at brandonfincher.com.