‘No real value’: KIRO host celebrates end of penny production after 230 years
Nov 16, 2025, 5:00 AM
The U.S. ended production of the penny on Wednesday, abandoning the 1-cent coin that was embedded in American culture for more than 230 years, but had eventually become nearly worthless.
Mike Lewis, a fill-in host for “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio, embraced the end of the pennies’ long-tenured history, claiming that it no longer served a purpose other than filling up change jars, and U.S. coins in general are not as widely used in comparison to other countries.
“The U.S., for about the past 25 years, is not much of a coin-based society. We do have vending machines, so the quarter still has some value. But the $2 loonie and toonie you’d find in Canada are widely in circulation and used all the time. The U.S. has never been like that,” Lewis said. “We have very little adoption, even of our dollar coins. Most of the coins that are minted in the U.S. end up in change jars, almost all of them, because people don’t spend them, and there is no real value in carrying them around. It’s a great idea, every penny I have is in a jar.”
Watch the full discussion in the video above.
Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
