Congressman Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, in cahoots with Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., and Senators Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., proposed Wednesday the abolishment of the most basic unit of U.S. currency, the 1-cent coin.
The quartet’s bill, titled the Common Cents Act, would direct the U.S. Treasury Department to stop minting pennies and require cash transactions to be rounded up or down to the nearest five cents. Pennies still in circulation would continue to count as currency.
Non-cash transactions, such as credit card, debit card, mobile phone payments, and checks, would not be affected.
Garcia pitched the bill as a way to further eliminate waste. It follows two efficiency-oriented bills he introduced in the last congressional cycle.
“It doesn’t make sense to continue producing the penny,” Garcia said in a statement. “As the cost of living continues to rise and with more folks tapping their phones or cards for payment, we shouldn’t be pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into a coin that is rarely used. By halting production, we would actually cut waste and boost efficiency in a common-sense way.”
It comes after President Donald Trump gave the same order in February, following a suggestion from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to cease production of the 1-cent coin, arguing its buying power is past its prime.
But the Trump Administration, some experts argue, lacks the power to unilaterally eliminate the 1-cent coin. Specifications of the nation’s currency — including the size and metal content of coins — are dictated by Congress.
“President Trump’s common-sense idea should become law,” McClain said in a news release. “We are taking a decisive step toward fiscal responsibility and updating our currency for the 21st century.”
In their announcement, lawmakers cite the complex process of minting coins, arguing that making money is a money-making issue. Advocates of scuttling the coin maintain that the government will save hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
The U.S. Mint spends nearly four cents to mint a cent, which officials attribute to rising metal prices. By the end of this fiscal year, it will spend about $92.5 million to produce 3.2 billion pennies, not including the cost to pack and ship the coins to banks nationwide.
In 2024, the agency reported an $85.3 million loss on the cost of production. It also loses money on making the nickel, which costs nearly triple its worth to produce.
Pennies continue to be minted because billions of them vanish from circulation every year, the Treasury estimates, as pennies are tossed down wells, thrown away with pocket lint, or left in the shadows of dresser drawers.
Lawmakers also argue that eliminating them would not be unusual, saying the practice is followed outside the U.S. In the 1980s, pennies were eliminated from U.S. military bases overseas without much hoopla; Canada, Australia and New Zealand have also eliminated their versions of one-cent coins.
It also wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. did away with a coin; the half-cent coin was discontinued by Congress in 1857. And past Congress members have also pitched cost-saving design changes: cutting the American eagles off the backs of half-dollars and quarters; ridding the dime of its torch, the nickel of Monticello and the penny of the Lincoln Memorial.
Even if Garcia and other members of Congress succeed in their plans to eliminate the diminutive currency, Long Beach will have at least one remaining: the 11-foot-tall penny monument in Lincoln Park — a feature that Garcia helped usher in, and praised effusively, when he was mayor.