The United States wouldn't be the first country to eliminate the coin, Turco said. Canada, for example, decided to phase out its penny in 2012. In the U.S., the Department of Defense stopped using pennies at its overseas bases in 1980 because it became too expensive to ship them.

The federal government made its final order of penny blanks this month — marking the first step to end the production of the one-cent coin, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Treasury confirmed to USA TODAY.