The portrait of Harriet Tubman is once again being considered to replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. The Biden administration said Monday that the U.S. Treasury Department is resuming the effort to place the 19th century abolitionist leader on the $20 note.
Obama administration Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had chosen Tubman to replace Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, on the twenty. However, that outcome became unlikely during the Trump administration.
Trump administration Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did not follow through with the Obama administration’s Tubman redesign plan. In 2019, Mnuchin declared a delay in redesigning the $20 bill in order to first remake the $10 and $50 banknotes to improve their security features.
Under Mnuchin’s schedule, the restyled $20 bill would have been introduced in 2028, with final designs being unveiled in 2026. With a change in administrations, the Treasury Department will reportedly take steps to accelerate the redesign effort, although a timeline has not been announced.
The $20 and $1 bills are most common in the U.S. Historic figures on the country’s paper currency have not changed since 1929.
