In the United States, producing a one-cent coin cost about 3.7 cents in 2024; the country stopped minting them for circulation in 2025. It's not alone: Canada dropped its penny in 2012-2013, and Australia its 1- and 2-cent coins back in 1992. Metal and minting cost more than the face value. Cash payments are then rounded to the nearest 5 cents.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.