Making currency accessible

The United States is alone in the world with it making all paper currency the same exact size. Naturally, this makes it difficult for the legally blind to distinguish bill sizes. The District of Columbia Federal Circuit Court has ruled this amounts to discrimination.

Court says money discriminates against blind people


The Treasury Department could go ahead and change bill sizes, but that would probably be the most expensive option and would entail a huge outcry from the people with the habit of getting bent out of shape over unimportant things. Other solutions that have been suggested entail having raised numbers, having rounded or cut-off corners (smaller bills would have more missing corners so you wouldn't be able to "convert" $1 bill to a $100 by ripping off corners), or notches on the top or bottom edge (with the same principle as the corners).

I don't know how blind people see these options and whether any seem much better. I would think that the notches seem the most attractive. It should be easy to implement. With the corners, one would have to be careful that a worn-down bill simply hasn't had a corner folded over.

It could work like this:

• $1 bill - 4 notches on top left edge
• $2 bill - 3 notches on top left edge
• $5 bill - 2 notches on top left edge
• $10 bill - 1 notch on top left edge
• $20 bill - 3 notches on top right edge
• $50 bill - 2 notches on top right edge
• $100 bill - 1 notch on top right edge

This assumes there is a way to feel what the front of the bill is. It still works if the bill is upside down (it's just the reverse and on the bottom). Another possibility would be to have different type of notches on the right and left; perhaps the left is a 'V' notch and the right is a curved, 'U' notch, or the left has thin notches and the right has wide notches.

Perhaps this could be simplified by eliminating the $1 bill (and even $2 bill). It would take an act of Congress, but we should switch to a $1 coin. The Canadians have $1 and $2 coins, and their money is even more valuable than ours these days.