Kray Luxbacher addresses the end of the penny

While the penny is quite literally the base of America's currency system, its days are limited. President Donald Trump announced that minting of the copper coins will be halted, which caused some concern among the Arizona mining industry. MGE department head Kray Luxbacher recently spoke with Cronkite News about the impacts — or lack thereof — this announcement will have on the state's mining industry. 

“The penny is kind of an American institution, and it’s special in Arizona because we mine 70% of American copper,” Luxbacher said. 

It's long been acknowledged that minting pennies was a bit counterintuitive. While they're only valued at 1 cent, pennies cost roughly 3.5 cents to create. However, only a small fraction of the modern penny is actually copper. 2.5% by weight. The rest is zinc.

“From an economic perspective, if you make a product that costs more to make than it’s worth, that’s a problem," Luxbacher said.