Penny elimination trades convenience for low-income cash users' cumulative losses

What it does

This bill stops the U.S. Mint from making pennies and allows cash transactions to be rounded to the nearest nickel (up or down depending on the final digit). Existing pennies remain legal tender. The bill permits—but does not require—businesses, banks, and individuals to round cash payments, with rules favoring customers when rounding occurs. The Federal Reserve must report on how penny supply disruptions and rounding practices affect low-income, unbanked, and older consumers.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core mechanism is straightforward—end penny production and permit cash rounding—but the civic effect is mixed because it trades convenience for a broad population against documented risks to vulnerable subgroups. The bill is not deceptive about what it does, but the distributional consequences are material and acknowledged in the reporting mandate.

What the text implies

• Rounding rules may systematically disadvantage low-income consumers in repeated small transactions; a customer paying $1.01 in cash rounds up to $1.05 (4-cent loss), but a business paying a customer $1.01 in change rounds down to $1.00 (1-cent gain to business). Over time, this asymmetry concentrates losses on cash-dependent populations.
• Unbanked and underbanked individuals who cannot use electronic payment methods and rely entirely on cash face cumulative rounding losses with no offsetting gains, while banked populations can avoid rounding by using cards or checks.
• Penny supply disruption may create informal markets or hoarding of remaining pennies, raising costs for those who need exact change or numismatic collectors.
• Employers are permitted (not required) to round employee wages up to the nearest nickel, but the bill does not address whether rounding down is permitted—creating ambiguity in wage-payment obligations.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

The bill offers convenience to most cash users through rounding, but creates concrete risks for low-income, unbanked, and older consumers who depend on cash and may accumulate losses through repeated rounding down, or face difficulty obtaining pennies for exact transactions. The bill's own reporting requirement (Section 5) signals awareness of these disparate impacts but does not prevent them.

Who stands to gain

• Retail businesses (reduced coin-handling costs)
• Financial institutions (reduced penny processing and storage costs)
• Vending machine operators (simplified change mechanisms)

Named in the bill

U.S. Mint, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, House Committee on Financial Services, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Where it stands

1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.

• Apr 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• Apr 29, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Financial Services and Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services”
• Jul 22, 2025 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
• Jul 23, 2025 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported in the Nature of a Substitute (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 35 - 13”
• Jul 14, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote”
• Jul 14, 2026 — Floor vote scheduled · Congress.gov: “Mr. Hill (AR) moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

30 lobbying clients named this bill on 45 disclosure filings across 4 quarters, Sep 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $19,534,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 7 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 98% of bills with at least one filing.

Lisa McClain, the sponsor, reported $1,545,787 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle. $30,000 of that came from 6 PACs tied to these lobbying clients.

• American Bankers Association — $5,210,000 on 2 filings
• Walmart Inc — $2,060,000 on 1 filing
• National Restaurant Association — $1,620,000 on 2 filings
• United Steel Paper & Forestry Rubber Manufacturing Energy — $1,600,000 on 3 filings
• Food Marketplace Inc — $1,384,000 on 2 filings

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.