The U.S. Mint Might Stop Producing Pennies

The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Timiraos reports that in a March 2015 memo to US president Barack Obama, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said he planned to suspend production of the venerable penny.

While the existence of the memo had not been disclosed previously, the idea of ditching the one-cent piece has been a perennial debate for a few decades now. Among the arguments for: Pennies fall out of circulation almost immediately, forcing the US mint to continually stamp out more, and they cost almost twice as much to produce as they’re worth, according to the most recent data from the US mint.

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