The penny is gone, and most Americans barely noticed.
But Washington rarely stops at one. A coin plenty of folks still carry just landed in the crosshairs.
And one line tucked into a bill awaiting Donald Trump has people wondering where all of this really ends.
A Super Bowl Night Post Started the Whole Thing
Donald Trump fired the opening shot on February 9, 2025, on his way out of the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, according to the Associated Press. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”
He tacked on one more line that pretty much sums up how he looks at the federal budget. “Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.”
The US Mint struck its final batch of circulating pennies in November 2025, according to Grocery Dive. Treasury pegged the savings at $56 million a year.
But a Treasury decision only lasts as long as the folks running Treasury. So Congress went to work nailing it down.
Two Votes in Each Chamber and Some Strange Bedfellows
The Common Cents Act, HR 10167, ends penny production for circulation and lets businesses round cash sales to the nearest nickel when they don’t have exact change. The Mint can still strike pennies for collectors.
Representative Lisa McClain (R-MI), who chairs the House Republican Conference, wrote the House bill with Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA). US Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) carried the Senate version alongside Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), James Lankford (R-OK), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
Spectrum News once described Garcia as one of the President’s loudest critics. And even he couldn’t argue with the math on a coin that cost the Mint 3.69 cents apiece in 2024.
The House approved the bill by voice vote on July 14, 2026. Then the Senate tacked on an amendment from US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and that forced each chamber to vote a second time.
Senators cleared the final version on September 28, 2026, and shipped it to the White House. Lummis thanked her colleagues on X once it crossed the finish line.
Warren’s amendment requires Treasury to notify Congress of any future currency discontinuation and hand lawmakers a transition plan, according to two retail trade groups cited by Grocery Dive. File that one away for later.
Grocers lobbied hard for the rounding piece. Stores that take SNAP benefits can’t charge food stamp shoppers a different price than everybody else, so the penny drought turned the checkout line into a daily headache.
“It costs nearly four cents to make a penny that is worth one cent. That is not a good use of taxpayer dollars,” Lankford said in a statement from his office.
Hard to find anybody in Washington, DC who disagrees with that.
The 13-Cent Nickel Is Next in Line
The nickel bleeds money too, and not by a little. Each five-cent coin runs taxpayers a loss of roughly eight cents, according to Fox News.
The Mint makes nickels from a blend of 75% copper and 25% nickel. Copper doesn’t come cheap.
“If it costs 13 cents to make a five-cent coin, Washington should fix the problem instead of wasting more taxpayer money,” McClain told Fox News Digital.
She added that her bill “gives Treasury a path to make nickels at a lower cost without disrupting how Americans use them.”
Under the bill, Treasury can switch to a cheaper metal mix if testing shows real savings without gumming up vending machines and other coin-operated equipment. Trade press reports point toward zinc in place of copper.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News back in May 2025 that he believed the country could “retool” the nickel. Nobody in Congress has proposed scrapping it outright, at least not yet.
And the White House never answered when Fox News asked whether and when Trump plans to sign.
Why the Cashless Crowd Has Folks Watching Closely
Cutting a few million bucks of wasted metal out of the budget is about as easy a win as Washington ever gets. A Trump directive, a bill co-written by a Trump critic, and a unanimous Senate. That almost never happens.
But read Lummis’ comments to Fox closely.
“More and more Americans are paying with credit cards, debit cards and stablecoins for everyday purchases that once would have been made with cash or coins,” she said.
She’s right about the trend. And that trend is exactly what had Fox News readers lighting up the comment section about a creeping cashless society.
Cash has one feature no card can match. Nobody keeps a ledger of the twenty you hand the fella at the feed store. Swipe plastic, and a bank, a payment processor, and maybe someday a government agency all get a look at what you bought.
Trump already spotted the danger in its ugliest form. In January 2025 he signed an executive order, Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology, that bars federal agencies from establishing, issuing, or promoting a central bank digital currency.
The House backed him up on July 17, 2025, when it passed the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act 219-210. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), the bill’s author, called a government digital dollar “an un-American surveillance tool” in comments to The Daily Signal.
Emmer’s bill even blocks the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors from testing or studying one. Congress doesn’t usually bother banning things nobody over there ever wanted to try. Maybe that reads too much into it. Maybe not.
The same Federal Reserve runs the coin distribution sites that reported widespread penny shortages after minting stopped, according to The Shelby Report. Emmer’s office has said his bill still awaits Senate action.
Here’s the lesson tying all of this together. Executive orders get written in pencil, and the next President can erase one with a pen of his own. Fox News noted that a future administration could restart penny production unless Trump signs the Common Cents Act into law.
And the same goes for the CBDC ban. Until the Senate moves, a different occupant of the Oval Office could flip that switch back on.
Warren’s notice requirement sounds like a guardrail, and maybe it works like one. But a heads-up to Congress doesn’t stop anything by itself.
None of this means the dime is doomed or that anybody on Capitol Hill wants to take away paper money. Nobody has floated anything like that. Still, the folks who pay cash at the diner and keep a coffee can of change on the dresser have every reason to keep one eye on where this road leads after the nickel.
“Congress killed the penny — now it’s coming for the 13-cent nickel,” Fox News
“Senate passes Common Cents bill,” Grocery Dive
“Trump says he has directed Treasury to stop minting new pennies, citing cost,” Associated Press
“ICYMI: Common Cents Act Passes Senate by Unanimous Consent,” Office of US Senator James Lankford
“Common Cents Act One Pager,” Office of US Senator James Lankford
“Common Cents Act aims to stop US from minting pennies,” Spectrum News NY1
“Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s Flagship Legislation, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, Passes House of Representatives,” Office of House Majority Whip Tom Emmer
“Whip Emmer’s CBDC Ban Legislation Sent to Senate,” Office of House Majority Whip Tom Emmer
“House Moves to Ban Digital Currency Tool With Potential for Authoritarian Abuse,” The Daily Signal
“NGA Backs House Passage of Penny-Rounding Legislation,” The Shelby Report