It costs 1.62 cents to mint and distribute penny.  Really.  And this isn't anything new.  Since 2006, it's cost slightly more to produce a penny than the one cent it is worth, leading to a loss of of about $20 million dollars, total, in 2009.  The main culprit?  The metals used to make it.  A penny is 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, and as the price of these materials have gone up, so has the cost to produce the coin.

Kill the penny.