Steve Mnuchin: Redesign of $20 Bill With Harriet Tubman Won’t Be Unveiled in 2020
WHAT’S THE HOLD UP?
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that the redesign of the $20 bill featuring abolitionist Harriet Tubman will no longer be unveiled in 2020. Mnuchin said the design process has been delayed, and new designs won’t be unveiled until 2028. The unveiling was intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote. “The primary reason we have looked at redesigning the currency is for counterfeiting issues,” Mnuchin said during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. “Based upon this, the $20 bill will now not come out until 2028. The $10 bill and the $50 bill will come out with new features beforehand.”
The Tubman redesign was the result of a 10-month process in which the Treasury Department sought input from the public. “The decision to put Harriet Tubman on the new $20 was driven by thousands of responses we received from Americans young and old,” Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said at the time. Months before he was elected, President Trump called the decision to put Tubman on the currency “pure political correctness,” and proposed putting her on the $2 bill instead.