--- title: Even the U.S. Treasury Secretary Wants to Scrap the Penny description: In a 2015 memo, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recommended that the U.S. suspend production of the penny because making them is too expensive. authors: - name: Denver Nicks url: https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/ at_money_since: 2015 articles: 60 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit Cards - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Personal Finance - Pets - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes social: - https://x.com/DenverNicks - https://plus.google.com/105122198911201917932 former_staff: true published: '2016-04-20T15:46:19.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T10:41:45.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - Currency - Hamilton - Jacob Lew - Mint - Money - Penny - pubdesk - Treasury word_count: 270 canonical: https://money.com/get-rid-of-penny-jacob-lew/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Future Of The Penny In Doubt](https://img.money.com/2016/04/gettyimages-71383443.jpg) You've probably heard that it actually cost more money to make a penny than a penny is worth. As of 2014, the cost of making a penny was estimated at 1.7 cents. So yeah, it almost costs two pennies to make one penny--which obviously makes no sense (pun intended). Canada decided back in 2012 to [stop making pennies](http://business.time.com/2012/03/30/canadas-penny-is-no-more-is-the-u-s-penny-next/?iid=sr-link4) because of production costs and consumers viewing them as largely worthless, and over the years many have called for the U.S. to similarly get rid of the penny. We can now officially count Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew among those who favor suspending production of the penny. In a March 2015 memo to the President Barack Obama, revealed on Wednesday by [*The Wall Street Journal*](http://www.wsj.com/articles/lew-planned-to-put-susan-b-anthony-on-10-bill-1461083466), Lew wrote about a plan to put Susan B. Anthony—an early feminist and pioneer in the fight for women’s civil rights in the U.S.—on the $10 bill, [replacing Alexander Hamilton](https://money.com/hamilton-musical-woman-10-bill/). The memo also mentioned a possible plan to stop making pennies. “We’ve been looking at the penny for a long time, because obviously the value of a penny has gotten smaller and smaller as time has gone on,” Mr. Lew said at a forum in November 2015. “Even with low inflation, it continues to diminish.” Since the one-cent piece amounts to such a small value and are often discarded they are more quickly removed from circulation than other denominations of coin, the *Journal reports*, meaning more pennies have to be produced by the U.S. mint than all other coins combined. [![Best college education image](https://content.money.com/wp-content/themes/money2018/img/college-site-banner-01.png)](https://best-colleges.time.com/money/search-colleges/?xid=cm-mcpTop200Widget) Still, the Treasury has announced no specific plans to eliminate the penny from circulation for the time being. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/get-rid-of-penny-jacob-lew/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Economy", "item": "https://money.com/economy/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Even the U.S. Treasury Secretary Wants to Scrap the Penny" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/get-rid-of-penny-jacob-lew/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/get-rid-of-penny-jacob-lew/", "name": "Even the U.S. Treasury Secretary Wants to Scrap the Penny", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-04-20T15:46:19.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/get-rid-of-penny-jacob-lew/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/get-rid-of-penny-jacob-lew/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T10:41:45.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Even the U.S. Treasury Secretary Wants to Scrap the Penny", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/04/gettyimages-71383443.jpg", "width": 3000, "height": 2000, "caption": "Future Of The Penny In Doubt" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Denver Nicks", "url": "https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2012/09/09_1165862081.jpg?quality=85&w=640&h=640&crop=1", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/DenverNicks", "https://plus.google.com/105122198911201917932" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-04-20T15:46:19.000Z", "description": "In a 2015 memo, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recommended that the U.S. suspend production of the penny because making them is too expensive.", "abstract": "In a 2015 memo, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recommended that the U.S. suspend production of the penny because making them is too expensive.", "@id": "https://money.com/get-rid-of-penny-jacob-lew/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-16T10:41:45.000Z", "wordCount": 270, "keywords": [ "Currency", "Hamilton", "Jacob Lew", "Mint", "Money", "Penny", "pubdesk", "Treasury" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Political economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy" ] } ] } ] } ```