Sponsors (2)
The bill stops production of new pennies and cleans up legal language to save minting costs and reduce ambiguity while preserving existing coins as legal tender — but it risks modest consumer price rounding impacts, added cash-handling burdens for businesses, and continued inconvenience for cash users.
All Americans (taxpayers) will no longer have new 1-cent coins produced, reducing U.S. Mint production costs and lowering the fiscal burden on taxpayers.
Cash users and retailers will see simpler cash transactions and less coin clutter as new pennies are removed from future minting, making some cash handling faster and easier.
Federal agencies, businesses, and consumers face less legal uncertainty because the bill cleans up outdated statutory language and clarifies the legal-tender status of pennies, reducing potential disputes over acceptance.
All consumers could face modest price increases because cash transaction rounding (once new pennies are no longer minted) may slightly raise some retail prices.
Small businesses and retailers may incur higher cash-handling time and management costs if they must continue to accept low-value coins and deal with more rounding/coin sorting.
Taxpayers and frequent cash users (including seniors) will continue to bear the inconvenience of carrying and using a low-value coin and may experience disputes or confusion at checkout over rounding rules.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Introduced May 1, 2025 by Jeff Merkley · Last progress May 1, 2025
Prohibits the Treasury Secretary from minting or issuing 1-cent coins and updates federal statutes and tax-code cross-references to reflect removal of the penny from new production. It also states a non-binding view that only Congress may coin money and regulate currency value. Existing 1-cent coins remain legal tender for all debts, taxes, and duties.