Money discriminates against blind people
Recently a federal court has ruled that the US currency discriminates against the blind by through paper money. This ruling will now spur a redesign by the Treasury department. They are considering raised ink or even printing them in different sizes. The real question is why has this now become an issue?
It seems like if there’s something that could be changed, why not make the change if it improves things? Paper money has undergone many changes over time. Counterfeiters have always tried to find the flaws that would allow them to copy a bill and pass it as authentic currency. To make a change to paper money to help the blind could take years before we actually have them in circulation.
The most recent and noticeable changes to our paper bills was offsetting and enlarging the US Presidents head and adding a purple color into the design. Most bills also have the numerical value of the bill printed larger on the lower right corner on the back of the bill. These kinds of things help people with poor or low vision at least have an idea of the value a paper bill has, but currently offers no aid to blind people.
As far as solutions to this issue it’s hard to say what will happen. Paper money should probably stay paper and relatively the same size, so changes in material may be out of the question. Raised ink could be a possibility because Braille could be printed on the edge of a bill. They might have to revisit an old idea and consider printing Roman numerals in raised ink (I for 1, V for 5, X for 10, XX for 20, L for 50, and C for 100) large enough so they know the value of the bill. A lot of blind people currently fold their bills in a unique way to allow them to separate the differences between them.
I could pose the question of how much longer we will have paper money around. Technology is really taking hold and a lot of people are using debit cards instead of cash. There is a difference in spending $100 at a store on a debit card and actually putting down a crisp Benjamin Franklin. You feel more emotion from the transaction when you can feel and see the money leaving your hands. Should someone have them add glue to the ink printed on money so it’s not so easy to spend?
