Feel What's in Your Pocket

Close Your Eyes and Give me a $20 dollar bill. Okay, now give me a $5. You can’t do it.

So how does a blind person handle cash? They can’t either. They have to rely on a sighted person to help. But for 6 years the Treasury Department has been fighting a law suit from the American Council for the Blind. The suit requests that the Treasury Department make design changes to U.S. bills to accommodate the visually impaired. Recent design changes such as larger numbers have helped, but they don’t go far enough.

On Tuesday, May 20th, the federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that further changes were needed saying, “The government might as well argue that, since handicapped people can crawl on all fours or ask for help from strangers, there's no need to make buildings wheelchair accessible.”

What’s the Treasury Department’s reason for kicking and screaming over making changes? Money.

How do other countries handle the challenge? A variety of common ways:

Varied Sizes

Raised Watermarks

Engraved Marks

Holes