Editing Federal Reserve Note (section)

===Differentiation===
Critics, such as the [[American Council of the Blind]], note that U.S. bills are relatively hard to tell apart: they use very similar designs, they are printed in the same colors (until the 2003 banknotes, in which a faint secondary color was added), and they are all the same size. The American Council of the Blind has argued<ref name="amconbli" /> that American paper currency design should use increasing sizes according to value or raised or indented features to make the currency more usable by the [[blindness|vision-impaired]], since the denominations cannot currently be distinguished from one another non-visually. Use of [[Braille]] codes on currency is not considered a desirable solution because these markings would only be useful to people who know how to read Braille, and one Braille symbol can become confused with another if even one bump is rubbed off. Though some blind individuals say that they have no problems keeping track of their currency because they [[blind bill folding|fold their bills in different ways]] or keep them in different places in their [[wallet]]s, they nevertheless must rely on sighted people or [[currency-counting machine]]s to determine the value of each bill before filing it away using the system of their choice. This means that no matter how organized they are, blind people still have to trust sighted people or machines each time they receive U.S. banknotes.

By contrast, other major currencies, such as the [[pound sterling]] and [[euro]], feature notes of differing sizes: the size of the note increases with the denomination and different denominations are printed in different, contrasting colors. This is useful not only for the vision-impaired; they nearly eliminate the risk that, for example, someone might fail to notice a high-value note among low-value ones.

Multiple currency sizes were considered for U.S. currency, but makers of [[vending machine|vending]] and [[change machine]]s successfully argued that implementing such a wide range of sizes would greatly increase the cost and complexity of such machines. Similar arguments were unsuccessfully made in Europe prior to the introduction of multiple note sizes.

Alongside the contrasting colors and increasing sizes, many other countries' currencies contain tactile features missing from U.S. banknotes to assist the blind. For example, Canadian banknotes have a series of [[Canadian currency tactile feature|raised dots]] (not Braille) in the upper right corner to indicate denomination. [[Mexican peso]] banknotes also have raised patterns of dashed lines. The [[Indian rupee]] has raised patterns of different shapes printed for various denominations on the left of the watermark window (20: vertical rectangle; 50: square; 100: triangle; 500: circle; 1,000: diamond).

====Lawsuit over U.S. banknote design====
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Ruling on a lawsuit filed in 2002 (''[[American Council of the Blind]] v. Paulson''), on November 28, 2006, U.S. District Judge [[James Robertson (judge)|James Robertson]] ruled that the American bills gave an undue burden to the blind and denied them "meaningful access" to the U.S. currency system. In his ruling, Robertson noted that the United States was the only nation out of 180 issuing paper currency that printed bills that were identical in size and color in all their denominations and that the successful use of such features as varying sizes, raised lettering and tiny perforations used by other nations is evidence that the ordered changes are feasible.<ref>{{cite court |litigants=American Council of the Blind v. Paulson|vol=463|reporter=F. Supp. 2d|opinion=51|court=D. D.C.|date=2008|url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10021338527335013059}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-12-12-currency-redesign_x.htm|title=Government appeals currency redesign |agency=Associated Press |work=[[USA Today]]|date=December 13, 2006|access-date=March 26, 2010}}</ref> The [[plaintiff]]'s attorney was quoted as saying "It's just frankly unfair that blind people should have to rely on the good faith of people they have never met in knowing whether they've been given the correct change."<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112900376.html|title=Judge: Make Money Recognizable to Blind|date=November 29, 2006 |newspaper=The Washington Post|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286|access-date=February 3, 2017}}</ref>  Government attorneys estimated that the cost of such a change ranges from $75&nbsp;million in equipment upgrades and $9&nbsp;million annual expenses for punching holes in bills to $178&nbsp;million in one-time charges and $50&nbsp;million annual expenses for printing bills of varying sizes.<ref name=":0" />

Robertson accepted the plaintiff's argument that current practice violates Section 504 of the [[1973 Rehabilitation Act|Rehabilitation Act]].<ref>{{cite web|title=AMERICAN COUNCIL OF THE BLIND, et al. v. Henry M. Paulson, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, Civil Action No. 02-0864 (JR)|publisher=[[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]]|date=2002|url=http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/opinions/2006/2002-CV-0864~12:3:41~12-1-2006-a.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070216033211/http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/opinions/2006/2002-CV-0864~12:3:41~12-1-2006-a.pdf |archive-date=February 16, 2007 |access-date=February 16, 2018}}</ref> The judge ordered the [[United States Department of the Treasury]] to begin working on a redesign within 30 days,<ref name="amconbli">{{cite news | url=https://money.cnn.com/2006/11/28/markets/treasury_ruling/index.htm | title=Judge rules paper money unfair to blind | work=[[CNN]] | date=November 29, 2006}}</ref><ref name="acb2008">{{cite press release |url=http://www.acb.org/press-releases/pr-october-3-currency-press-release.html|title=Court Says Next Gen Currency Must Be Accessible to the Blind|publisher=[[American Council of the Blind]]|date=October 6, 2008 |editor=Bridges, Eric|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 22, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022184958/http://www.acb.org/press-releases/pr-october-3-currency-press-release.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.acb.org/press-releases/pr-currency3.html|title=Court Says the Blind Will Have Meaningful Access to Currency, Tells Government 'No Unnecessary Delays'|publisher=[[American Council of the Blind]]|access-date=November 21, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081119211743/http://www.acb.org/press-releases/pr-currency3.html|archive-date=November 19, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.acb.org/press-releases/pr-08conv-currency.html|title=Federal Court Tells U.S. Treasury Department That It Must Design and Issue Accessible Paper Currency|publisher=[[American Council of the Blind]]|access-date=November 21, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081119212342/http://www.acb.org/press-releases/pr-08conv-currency.html|archive-date=November 19, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref>
but the Treasury appealed the decision.

On May 20, 2008, in a 2-to-1 decision, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] upheld the earlier ruling, pointing out that the cost estimates were inflated and that the burdens on blind and visually impaired currency users had not been adequately addressed.<ref>{{cite court|litigants=American Council of the Blind v. Paulson|vol=525|reporter=F. 3d|opinion=1256|court=D.C. Cir.2008|date=|url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8095084321449012235}}</ref>

On October 3, 2008, on remand from the D.C. Circuit, D.C. District Court Judge Robertson granted the injunction.<ref>{{cite court|litigants=American Council of the Blind v. Paulson|vol=581|reporter=F. Supp. 2d|opinion=1|court=D. D.C.|date=2008|url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10021338527335013059}}</ref>

As a result of the court's injunction, the [[Bureau of Engraving and Printing]] is planning to implement a raised tactile feature in the next redesign of each note, except the $1 bill (which is not allowed to be redesigned under a 2015 law{{why|date=July 2024}}<ref>{{USStatute|114|113|129|2431|2015|12|18}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Congressional Research Service Report RS21907 |url=http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/wikileaks-crs/wikileaks-crs-reports/RS21907.pdf |page=3 footnote |work=WikiLeaks Document Release |via=[[MIT]] |date=August 11, 2004 |access-date=February 16, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/tre.html|title=Administrative Provisions : Department of the Treasury|access-date=June 28, 2017}}</ref>), though the version of the $100 bill already is in progress.  It also plans larger, higher-contrast numerals, more color differences, and distribution of currency readers to assist the visually impaired during the transition period. The Bureau received a comprehensive study on accessibility options in July 2009,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.moneyfactory.gov/images/ARINC_Final_Report_7-26-09.pdf|title=Final Report: Study to Address Options for Enabling the Blind and Visually Impaired Community to Denominate U.S. Currency, July 2009}}</ref> and solicited public comments from May to August 2010.<ref>{{Federal Register|75|28331}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=TREAS-DO-2010-0003 |website=Regulations.gov |id=TREAS-DO-2010-0003 |title=Meaningful Access to United States Currency for Blind and Visually Impaired Persons}}</ref>

The 2013 redesign of the $100 bill did not include distinguishing features for the blind. As of October 2022, the plan was to incorporate accessibility features into distributions of a new [[United States ten-dollar bill|$10 bill]] in 2026, [[United States fifty-dollar bill|$50 bill]] in 2028, [[United States twenty-dollar bill|$20 bill]] in 2030 followed later by a new [[United States five-dollar bill|$5]] then [[United States one-hundred-dollar bill|$100 notes]] later in the 2030s.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.coinworld.com/news/paper-money/printing-of-new-enhanced-10-dollar-note-expected-in-2026 | title=Printing of new enhanced $10 note expected in 2026 }}</ref>