Penny Wise: Time to Kill the One-Cent Coin?

President Obama dropped a bombshell in an online “Fireside Chat” Thursday that could reverberate — and shatter piggy banks — across the nation. Our commander-in-chief, it seems, wants to do away with the penny. Each one-cent piece costs 2.4 cents to mint and distribute, so the U.S. government loses money every time it puts one into circulation. The savings from eliminating the copper and zinc coins won’t result in huge savings for the government, but it still makes sense, Obama says, as “anytime we’re spending more money on something that people don’t actually use, that’s an example of something we should probably change.”