Every year the Treasury loses millions of dollars on the minting of cent coins, as much as $58 million in 2012. The price to produce a cent is over double than the actual value of the coin. Furthermore, the majority of automated vending machines do not accept cents, leading to a pileup of the useless coins. Never in our country's history has there ever been a more valueless coin, with one cent being one-fifth its value in 1972.
Many countries, including Canada and Australia, have already eliminated their respective one-cent coins, without very much negative impact on their economies.
The value of currency keeps dropping, and we must be able to adapt.