Yeah, the headline seems dumb. If the mint creates a $100 bill for $1.50, did they make $98.50? No.
The purpose of the mint is to maintain the US currency. It's a cost center, not a profit center.
The purpose of the mint is to maintain the US currency. It's a cost center, not a profit center.
>Fortunately, dimes and quarters are cheaper to make, costing less than their monetary value. So the Mint makes up the losses incurred on pennies and nickels with its 10- and 25-cent coins, and last year reported making $391.5 million in seigniorage.
Also, paper money isn't produced by the Mint, it's produced by the Bureau of Engraving & Printing
The mint literally creates physical money (coins). But in the end, the government actually does generate revenue, that gets calculated into a profit or loss for the country:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/seigniorage.asp
$100 bills DO generate profit. Pennies generate a loss. If you look at all of the currency in aggregate, it generates positive revenue for the country.
So when people print money, they aren't generating any wealth - it's just a wealth transfer from people who have paper money to the people who print it.
However coins are sold by the United States Treasury to the Federal Reserve Banks at face value and can generate a profit/loss based on the difference between the face value and the cost of manufacturing.