CR; U.S. dollar bills could change size, shape, texture to help the blind
Close your eyes. Now count your cash.
Can't do it? Welcome to the ongoing frustration that 4.4 million blind and visually impaired Americans have always had with U.S. currency.
Almost without exception, every other country in the world but the United States accommodates its sightless and visually impaired citizens by either printing denominations of different sizes or by altering the surface of the bills with such tactile identifiers as embossed dots, foils, engraved patterns, watermarks or notched cut-outs.
Even though printing currency denominations in different colors won't directly aid the blind, most countries opt to do that, too, in order to help visually impaired and sighted citizens alike identify their cash faster and easier.
The U.S. greenback stands alone as the only major world currency still invisible to the blind.
Currency changes coming
That's about to change in the coming weeks as the U.S. Department of the Treasury unveils its vision for a new universal American currency.
The change comes as the result of a decade-long legal challenge mounted by the American Council of the Blind (ACB), an Arlington, Va.-based organization that represents the blind and visually impaired.
In 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found that Treasury had discriminated against the blind and visually impaired by printing all denominations of currency in the same size and texture. In effect, the courts found greenbacks in violation of Section 504 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits government programs from discriminating against the disabled.
Since then, Treasury and its Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) have been kicking the tires on a variety of remedies suggested in a July 2009 commissioned report, including running the options by readymade blind focus groups at the ACB annual convention.
"The BEP sent a couple of representatives to one of our affiliate conventions in October, and they were soliciting input from convention attendees," says ACB executive director Melanie Brunson who is blind. "They showed us some paper that had notches or holes in them, some things they had done with foil, and different ways they had created dots on the paper. They are apparently looking at various combinations of those."
