Banks and retailers run short on pennies as the US Mint stops making them

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Banks and retailers run short on pennies as the US Mint stops making them

By KEN SWEET
Updated 9:16 AM EDT, October 30, 2025

NEW YORK (AP) — The United States is running out of pennies.

President Donald Trump’s decision to stop producing the penny earlier this year is starting to have real implications for the nation’s commerce. Merchants in multiple regions of the country have run out of pennies and are unable to produce exact change. Meanwhile, banks are unable to order fresh pennies and are rationing pennies for their customers.

One convenience store chain, Sheetz, got so desperate for pennies that it briefly ran a promotion offering a free soda to customers who bring in 100 pennies. Another retailer says the lack of pennies will end up costing it millions this year, because of the need to round down to avoid lawsuits.

“It’s a chunk of change,” said Dylan Jeon, senior director of government relations with the National Retail Federation.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/penny-coins-lincoln-shortage-us-mint-trump-089cf657b3fa4d6dc21533cf6bb08cf3

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Need to start minting a 2-cent coin. Between a cent and a dime in size, it would take less material ...

than a one-cent, yet carry twice the value, solving the problem with cents being worth less than the material to make them.

Cash registers would have to mingle 1-and 2-cent coins in the same tray, until cents ran out. Rounding to the nearest even number would be a lot easier to handle than rounding to the nearest five cents. It wouldn't be perfect, but we could make do.

Possibly, a coin the same diameter as a cent, but thinner, would work, and could be handled by coin sorting machines. A final separation of one- and two-cent coins could be handled at more centralized locations only, using air-vortex separators to take advantage of the different sail loading of the two types.

[Blues Heron]

2. Price everything in nickels you have the same granularity as 1975 when the penny had a 2025 nickel's value

[progree]

4. Good point. Actually, a penny then bought what takes 5.9 pennies now

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0
From September 1975 to September 2025, the CPI rose from 54.60 to 324.3685, an increase of 5.94 times

[RazorbackExpat]

3. I remember a "penny shortage" of the 1980s

Banks were paying a premium for pennies, even though the Mint was making billions of them each year. I think maybe that was because people started hoarding the pre-1982 bronze pennies after the Mint switched to copper-plated zinc in 1982