The Treasury Department's website notes that for well over two hundred years, pennies have been a common item found in American pockets.

That won't be true going forward, however, as the Trump administration is moving to eliminate penny production.

Each penny costs 3.69 cents to make

According to ABC News, President Donald Trump called for doing away with the penny in a post put up on Truth Social this past February.

"For far too long the United States has minted pennies, which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is wasteful!" the president complained.

"I have instructed my Secretary of Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let's rip the waste out of our great nation's budget, even if it's a penny at a time," he added.

In fact, ABC News reported that the cost of producing pennies has shot up over the past decade, rising from 1.3 cents to 3.69 cents for each coin struck. For comparison, each $1 bill only costs 3.2 cents to print.

Existing pennies will retain their status as legal currency

ABC News cited a statement released by the Treasury Department which claimed that halting penny production will save approximately $56 million worth of material costs.

"Additional savings will accrue as facility usage is adjusted and other efficiencies are achieved with the reduced production," the statement continued.

"Given the cost savings to the taxpayer, this is just another example of our administration cutting waste for the American taxpayer and making the government more efficient for the American people," it went on to declare.

ABC News pointed out that while the manufacture of new pennies is slated to cease, existing coins will still retain their status as legal currency.

Pro-penny group pushes back on plan

Caroline Turco serves as assistant curator of the Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and she told ABC News that the penny will be the 12th coin that the United States has phased out.

Previous examples included the half-cent coin, the 2-cent coin, the 20-cent coin,  and the "trime," which was a silver three-cent coin that was issued between 1851 and 1873.

"We retired them for multiple different reasons, but normally because they were not being used or they just became too expensive to produce," Turco explained.

Yet the idea of ditching the penny has received push back from Americans for Common Cents, a pro-penny organization which argues that the Treasury Department will need to produce a larger number of nickels and dimes, both of which are costlier to mint.