Claire Kornberg

A penny is being placed into a pink piggy bank with pennies — normal and pressed — scattered around it, something that could become rare in the future. With the suspension of penny production, it will become increasingly difficult in the future to pay costs in values other than in increments of five, causing some to wonder if the United States should adjust its costs to match the style of European countries. “Now, five cents will be the lowest denomination. We could move towards what other countries in Europe do, which is to have the tax included in the sticker price. It’s always a nice, rounded number with an increment of five,” said Greer Stone, an economics teacher at Carlmont High School.

The penny, an over 230-year-old tradition, has come to an end after the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury suspended its production on Nov. 12, 2025, causing small businesses to look to the future and change the way they will handle the coin. 

This decision was first announced in May 2025, after it was determined that the cost of producing each penny, which had increased from 1.49 cents to 3.69 cents over the last decade, was no longer sustainable for a coin of such a small denomination.

“The United States spent about $56 million a year printing the penny. Without the penny in circulation, the Treasury will save several million dollars. But of course, that’s a drop in the bucket when we have a budget around $6 trillion,” said Greer Stone, an economics teacher at Carlmont High School. 

Although the termination of production poses a money-saving opportunity, Stone notes that it also presents a risk of negatively impacting smaller businesses and those highly dependent on cash transactions, as it will ultimately lead to rounding prices up or down in the long run.

“I guess for your smaller mom-and-pop shops, especially in impoverished neighborhoods where people have to rely more on cash and change to be able to buy things, rounding could add up. In the long term, this will eventually have an impact, as stores are going to have to round up or down. So you’re not going to be able to have something that costs 53 cents. It’ll have to be either 50 cents or 55 cents,” Stone said.

Stone is not the only one who supports the belief that the country will be moving towards rounding to the nearest fifth cent when penny supplies begin to diminish. Another is Wells Fargo Bank, which will continue to distribute exact change until local branches run out of pennies.

“Wells Fargo branches nationwide are prepared for when their penny supplies are depleted. If pennies are not available in a branch when exact change is needed, for customers with a Wells Fargo checking or savings account, the pennies in a transaction will be deposited into their account. For non-customers or customers without a Wells Fargo checking or savings account, we will round up to the nearest 5 cents,” said Julia Tunis Bernard, a media correspondent for Wells Fargo Bank.

Rounding up, however, is not the only way to go. According to Brian Clarke, a founding partner and co-owner of The Baker Next Door, many companies can follow simple mathematical rules regarding rounding.

“I would round according to whatever the standard mathematics are. So if the change is three or above, we’d round up. If it is two or below, we’d round down,” Clarke said. 

This rounding culture, however, is not expected to occur anytime soon, as according to the United States Mint, there are currently over 300 billion pennies in circulation, leaving plenty for businesses to use throughout the next few years and small-business owners like Clarke to expect minimal impacts on their transactions.

“I think, from a business owner’s perspective, I don’t believe it will have any impact. At most, it’s going to be marginal, and at margins that we won’t ever be able to tell,” Clarke said.

Like Clarke, Stone echoes this belief, as he believes the penny’s value in the country’s economy holds a much more symbolic than monetary value, as everyone knows the penny, whether through its being the first coin denomination, its association with being a symbol of luck — if it lands on “heads” —  or Abraham Lincoln’s face.

“It’s more of a symbolic decision and loss. Everybody knows the penny with the copper that’s not copper anymore and the Lincoln Memorial on the back. So, for some people, they’re going to see the loss of the penny as a loss of a coin that has been symbolic of our monetary system rather than in any real economic sense,” Stone said.