Michael Kasper

AP Language & Comp

Mrs.Dougherty

2.18.19

Jackson or Tubman: A Cash Conundrum

The $20.00 bill. A staple of American currency, bearing the face of a man who helped

enforce the idea of a people’s president: Andrew Jackson; the 7th president of the United

States. In 2016, a change was proposed: put the face of Harriet Tubman, one of the many

“conductors” who helped slaves along the Underground Railroad, upon the bill. There are

several issues that arise from this though; namely, what’s the point? With 8.9 billion notes of

this type in circulation (approximately 22.36% of all circulated notes), the cost would be

monumental, both in recalling all current notes or printing new ones; outweighing the value

of the collective $20.00 note, and depreciating currency in general; the same argument

occurs with the penny, a coin with a hundreth of the dollar’s value, but it costs an extra half-

cent to create, and that is cumulative, especially when the U.S Mint produces millions of

dollars worth of them. While the $20.00 note will be going nowhere near the worthlessness

of the penny, people still consider changing it; but maybe Trump had a good idea for once:

in a rally on October 1st, he commended his administration for opposing it; on the Today

show, he proposed this: “I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we could maybe

come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or do another bill.” Why does

this have to become a huge issue when we could get rid of pennies, and replace them with a
new denomination of paper currency, like the $2.00 bill; whose paper had borne the face of

Thomas Jefferson, like the nickel does now. Because the $2.00 bill is not commonly

circulated, it would be simpler and cheaper to just make more of them, but stamp Tubman’s

face onto it. There is no reason to change the $20.00 bill to accommodate for the

discrimination of enslaved Africans; much like the arguments to pay such people

reparations, it is much too costly and time consuming. Besides, one could easily make an

argument for another, stronger symbol of civil rights: Martin Luther King Jr., or Rosa Parks,

or even one of the Little Rock Nine. By comparison, Tubman is not as strong of a symbol,

and the money would be better spent on a more recognizable figurehead of Civil Rights.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-notes-andrew-jackson-continues-20-bill-005619747.html