We’re Spending Too Much to Make a Little Money - New York Times

In the last federal fiscal year, it cost the Mint 1.67 cents to make each of the roughly eight billion pennies it churned out. In other words, taxpayers paid more than $130 million for coins valued at only $80 million. Looked at another way, even your opinions have become more expensive. It costs about 3 cents to put in your 2 cents. The finances of the nickel are even grimmer. Each 5-cent piece cost 9.5 cents to make last year. So more than $120 million was spent to produce about $65 million worth of that coin. Rarely has a line from a long-ago American writer, Franklin Pierce Adams, rung truer: “What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.”