South Mississippi business owners weigh in on potential stop of penny production

BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) - President Donald Trump has asked the United States Treasury to stop the production of pennies since the costs for production are more than the coin’s value.

In the fiscal year of 2023, the U.S. spent $179 million in tax dollars on the production of 4.5 billion pennies.

WLOX News asked South Mississippi business owners if they could make sense of a penny-less world.

Norman Carnovale, owner of the Coin Shop in Biloxi, said the production of pennies takes copper and zinc, and both materials have raised over the years, leading to the marginal deficit.

“As far as money the government is spending, it is probably a wise thing to do in the long run,” Carnovale said.

Carnovale’s opinion seemed to echo the opinions of most others we spoke with, including Mon Naik. Naik is a jewelry store manager in Biloxi. He said penny production is both a waste of time and money.

“I see them in the sand and along the streets; it is a waste of money,” Naik said.

The idea of halting production had others, like Amanda Tweedy, thinking about a future without coins or cash.

“I feel like we’re going to just cards, but it’s going to be weird if the servers go down,” said Tweedy, a retail manager in Biloxi. “We would have no access to money.”

While the penny is in danger of becoming extinct, Carnovale said it isn’t the only coin whose future is bleak.

“If copper keeps rising in value, one day, more than likely, they will start looking at the nickel also,” Carnovale said.

See a spelling or grammar error in this story? Report it to our team HERE.

Copyright 2025 WLOX. All rights reserved.