As of 2014, The United States government spends $0.0183 to produce each penny.(1) It should go with out saying that this is an incredible high cost of production for such a small valued coin. The value lost by this cost-value disparity accounted for $55,000,00.(2)
With this said the penny should be eliminated from mint and all transactions should be rounded normally to the nearest nickel which can result in a large decrease in annual minting costs.
(1) http://coincollectingenterprises.com/information/cost-to-make-a-penny/pe...
(2)http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)