Pennies are worth more dead than alive. 

That’s been true for a long time. Constant inflation, even at the low levels of the pre-Biden era, steadily ate away at the value of the venerable 1-cent coin. The 95% copper cent of the 1970s became worth more than the face value after that decade’s high inflation, so in 1982, the Mint switched to pennies that were 97.5% zinc under a shiny copper coating. But the rising prices soon caught up to zinc, too. By 1989, Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona was among the first to propose doing away with the penny altogether, as the cost of metal looked to overtake the face value once again.