Does it make Sense to keep minting Cents?

Sometime soon, the US Mint will eventually cease its production of one cent pennies. The cost to mint a penny by the US Mint is roughly 1.5 cents so essentially losing ½ cent for every penny produced. Surprisingly since 2010 the amount of pennies produced every year is drastically increasing by about 1 billion pennies per year.

US One Cent Pennies Produced by the US Mint Year Produced

4,010,830,000 2010

4,938,540,000 2011

6,015,200,000 2012

7,070,000,000 2013

8,146,400,000 2014

9,365,300,000 2015

That is 39,546,270 billion pennies minted from 2010 thru 2015. That will fill a lot of wishing wells. In India, the people have decided on their own to stop using their Indian old coin version of the US Penny. The 50 Paise coin is equivalent to half of a Rupee making this Indian old coin value less than the value of a US Penny. Shopkeepers in India refuse to accept the 50 Paise Indian Coin, even though it is still legal tender. The Indian Government has not announced the elimination of the 50 Paise, but speculation persists that the timing is getting close as the Indian Mints have not produced any of these Indian old coins in a few years. So while many countries have eliminated their version of the penny or practically halted the production, the US Mint penny machine is chugging along and even increasing production numbers.