Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below. Scott Strong, a college professor and numbers expert, recently had an eye-opening experience at White Castle when the restaurant didn't give him the penny he was owed in his change. "They just kept it," he told the Kendall and Casey Show on Indiana's 93.1 WIBC (1).
Strong was apparently told that not giving customers their pennies back is now corporate policy. Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how Dave Ramsey warns nearly 50% of Americans are making 1 big Social Security mistake — here's how to fix it ASAP The IRS usually taxes gold as a collectible — but this little-known strategy lets you hold physical bullion tax-free.
Get your free guide from Priority Gold By Strong's math, if every White Castle location nationwide kept just one penny per cash transaction, the restaurant would be taking in an extra $835,000 a year. And if the practice becomes commonplace, it could result in a 3% to 5% increase in transaction costs for consumers, or even more for those who use cash regularly. In Strong's case, asking for the manager resulted in him going home with a shiny nickel for his troubles, but his experience is one aspect of the confusion that's hitting consumers at the cash register in the early goings of a post-penny world.
The rules are now inconsistent and depend on the store, the chain, the location and possibly the cashier's mood. For consumers on fixed budgets, that means they're no longer able to predict the final price of a purchase down to the cent when paying with cash. It's been just over a year since President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce the phasing out of the one-cent piece in February 2025, stating that pennies "literally cost us more than two cents" to make (2).
Mint, over the past decade, the cost of producing each penny has risen from 1.42 cents to 3.69 cents (3). Mint produced the final batch of one-cent coins on Nov. 12, 2025, and the final penny that went into circulation was struck by U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach at a ceremonial event in Philadelphia.
But even before production of the penny came to a halt, approximately 1.3 billion pennies went into circulation in 2025, versus the more than three billion that were produced the year prior. While no new pennies are being manufactured, the existing supply in circulation is estimated to be approximately 300 billion as of late 2025, "far exceeding the amount needed for commerce," according to the U.S. Retailers, however, reported shortages almost immediately.
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