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Treasury Department Backtracks On Unveiling Harriet Tubman 20 Bill In 2020

WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Obama administration plan to introduce a $20 bill featuring abolitionist Harriet Tubman to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 19 th Amendment granting women the right to vote has been canceled. In his May 22 announcement, Mnuchin said a new design for the $20 bill won't be unveiled until 2028 at the soonest and that there are no guarantees that it will bear the likeness of the celebrated abolitionist. “The primary reason we have looked at ...

May 25, 2019 by Emily Jed

WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Obama administration plan to introduce a $20 bill featuring abolitionist Harriet Tubman to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 19^th Amendment granting women the right to vote has been canceled.

In his May 22 announcement, Mnuchin said a new design for the $20 bill won't be unveiled until 2028 at the soonest and that there are no guarantees that it will bear the likeness of the celebrated abolitionist.

"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 followed a 10-month process in which the Treasury Department sought input from the public and received thousands of responses.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in 2017 that he wouldn't commit to an Obama administration decision to replace Andrew Jackson with African-American abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Jackson, the nation's seventh commander in chief, was a slave owner.

Trump was a presidential candidate at the time and described the plan as "pure political correctness."