Business & Economics
U.S. Mints Final Penny, Retailers Begin Rounding Amid Coin Phase-Out
On 12 Nov 2025 the Philadelphia Mint struck the last circulating one-cent coin, triggering immediate rounding of cash prices by major chains as pennies start disappearing from tills.
Focusing Facts
- Final penny pressed 12 Nov 2025 in Philadelphia; each coin cost 3.69¢ to make, per 2024 Mint report.
- Treasury projects annual savings of $56 million after President Trump’s February 2025 order to cease penny production.
- McDonald’s, Wendy’s and others now round cash totals to the nearest 5¢, typically in customers’ favor, while awaiting federal pricing guidance.
Context
America has culled coins before: the half-cent vanished in 1857 amid post-Civil-War inflation, and Britain lopped off its half-penny in 1984 for similar cost-benefit reasons. Today’s penny obituary sits at the intersection of centuries-old seigniorage math and a 21st-century shift away from physical cash (the Fed says <20 % of payments are now in paper or coin). If history rhymes, small change dies quietly while commerce adapts—Canada’s 2012 withdrawal and Australia’s 1992 one-cent scrap barely register now. Yet the symbolism matters: ending the coin named for Lincoln signals that even cherished iconography yields to efficiency, and it exposes bigger structural questions—why the nickel, still losing 9¢ apiece, survives; or how unequal rounding might subtly tax the poor who rely on cash. On a 100-year arc, the last penny may read as phase one of America’s slow pivot to a mostly digital, possibly central-bank-digital-currency economy, where physical coinage is a nostalgic novelty rather than a monetary necessity.
Perspectives
Business and financial outlets
e.g., Business Insider opinion page, Devdiscourse — Celebrate the penny’s demise as overdue common-sense budgeting that will save tens of millions of dollars a year and sweep away a useless, inconvenient coin. Their cost-cutting cheer may gloss over how rounding could disproportionately affect cash-reliant, lower-income consumers and ignores retailers’ logistical headaches mentioned in other reports.
Retail industry and consumer-facing trade voices
e.g., coverage quoting McDonald’s, Wendy’s, National Retail Federation — Warn that the sudden phase-out without federal rules leaves stores exposed to legal risks and forces them to improvise rounding policies that could alienate customers or erode margins. These statements come from businesses that could lose revenue when rounding down and therefore frame the problem as government mismanagement rather than their own adaptation costs.
Mainstream wire-service style newspapers highlighting nostalgia and heritage
e.g., Chicago Tribune reprinting AP copy, ABC News — Frame the final penny as a bittersweet cultural milestone, dwelling on its 232-year history, symbolic value and the emotions of mint workers even while noting cost savings. By foregrounding sentimentality and historical trivia, they may underplay the economic argument and reinforce romantic attachment that resists pragmatic change.