Secretary Jack Lew said Friday that the Treasury Department wasn’t going to wait for the redesign of the $20 bill to put a woman on U.S. paper money, and that it made more sense to displace Alexander Hamilton by redesigning the $10 bill.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Lew said the $10 bill is set for a redesign now, which is why a woman will soon grace that denomination.
“I don’t think it could be justified to break the cycle” to put a woman on the $20, Lew said, citing the “very disciplined” years-long process for redesigning currency to protect it from counterfeiters.
Lew’s comments are a rebuke to the critics, mostly fans of Hamilton or U.S. history buffs, who have called for Treasury to drop its plans for the redesign. Under Lew’s plan, Hamilton would either remain on the bill in a smaller capacity or the Treasury would issue two $10 bills, one with Hamilton and another with a woman to be named later.
Lew said he didn’t think it made sense to put a woman on currency until the next overhaul of the $20, which is slated for after President Obama leaves office. There have been a number of grassroots campaigns to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 with a woman, in part because of Jackson’s mixed legacy given his record of mistreatment of Native Americans and support for slavery.
As it is, the timeline for design of the $10 is already lengthy. It won’t be unveiled until 2020.
“If the choice is waiting for the next one to come along and to have that be a number of years more – I think we’ve waited long enough,” Lew said.
“Alexander Hamilton is one of my heroes,” he added, claiming that it’s impossible not to respect the first Treasury secretary while working in the agency that he created.
