What good is a brail ATM if you can't tell apart the bills that come out of it? Not much, said US District Judge James Robertson last week while pointing to a May court ruling that stated the current paper currency system discriminates against the blind. The court decision will soon require the Department of Treasury to create new bills that allow the blind to tell each denomination apart.

The lawsuit that incited the currency retooling was brought by the American Council of the Blind (ACB) whose executive director, Melanie Brunson, points to an unacceptably high rate of unemployment among people who are visually impaired.  According to Brunson, job opportunities, particularly for young people and other first-time job seekers who are looking for entry level positions in stores and restaurants, are limited at best and often times completely unavailable to people who cannot efficiently identify paper money.

Judge Robertson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in late November 2006 that the government had to move to redesign the famous dollar bill. "I find, accordingly, that the Treasury Department's failure to design and issue paper currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired individuals violates section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act," Robertson wrote.

A US Federal District Court upheld the ruling upon appeal, forcing the Treasury department to come up with a solution for the 937,000 blind persons and 2.4 million visually impaired individuals living in the US.

Over 180 countries incorporate tactile features into their paper currency as well as enhanced visual distinctions between denominations. The US is not one of them, despite having loads of bizarre iconic images on its currency capable of inspiring movie plots about their meaning.

The ACB suit does not favor any one feature for determining currency values tactilely, but instead asks for a meaningful effort on the part of the Department of Treasury toward making currency accessible to the largest number of blind and visually impaired persons.

Interestingly, a mandate to redesign US currency to include tactile elements is not universally accepted among disability activist groups. The National Federation for the Blind (NFB) adopted resolutions about currency in 1994, 2002, and 2008 that argue lawsuits such as the one brought by the American Council of the Blind are not only unnecessary but also harmful because they "serve to make [people with visual impairments] objects of pity - a perception that could have extreme, grievous, detrimental impact on the ability of blind people to achieve...equality."  

Naturally, the situation is more complicated than it appears. Redesign of currency is an expensive proposition, and not just for those who print the money. One group that has a particular interest in the issue is the National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA), representing the vending machine industry.  

Get ripped off by a vending machine lately? You haven't seen anything yet. An estimated seven million vending machine bill acceptors are in service in the US and each one would likely require modification if our currency is redesigned. Ironing out the kinks will most definitely result in lost money and hearing the ever-so-frustrating mechanical sound of bill rejection.

According to NAMA, changing the size of the bills would be the most far-reaching and expensive change, and you can bet your snack money will go to lobbying against such a change. As an alternative, the organization proposed the less costly (for them) method of placing Braille symbols on currency and trimmed or notched corners.

Both the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) and NAMA argue that personalized technology may hold a more practical and desirable solution. For example, the KNFB Mobile Reader contains a currency reader and a stand-alone version could be produced for as little as $100, according to NFB President Mark Maurer. The device scans a bill and indicates its denomination by tone, vibration, or voice, and could be could be carried by blind persons in lieu of reconfiguring all the money in circulation.

In Canada, hand-held, pocket-sized bill readers are provided free of charge by the Bank of Canada under a program with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB).  Future reader/scanner technologies may also effectively detect counterfeit bills, granting the technology a universal application beyond individuals with visual impairments.

World financial dependence on the dollar also supports the use of personalized devices over redesigning the money. The US dollar has a unique position in the world financial markets, in part because its consistent and uniform size over the last 50 years has enabled the US dollar to be less expensive to process than, for example, the Euro with its varying sizes. Many experts fear that a change to the size of the dollar, especially combined with significant other redesigns, would threaten the current position of the US dollar as the world's preferred currency...even if it's actual value has been on the wane.

While all the keys players in the lawsuit and other actions on this issue profess to appreciate the importance of making currency accessible to individuals with visual impairments, it is crucial that any redesign efforts - whether they be mandated by the court system, the Congress, or by the representative groups themselves - be carefully considered and undertaken with the greatest benefit in mind.

OhMyGov! highly encourages Congress to get involved and draft legislation which allows blind persons to write off the cost of personalized currency readers as an alternative to changing US currency. Avoiding the monumental and expensive task of changing our bills will buffer an already beaten economy from the ripple effects that would inevitable flow through it otherwise. It would also provide a much faster transition for the blind, as a phase out of old bills could take decades to fully accomplish. These devices could also be provided by employers of blind people, as part of a reasonable accommodation for disadvantaged workers.

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