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Samantha Hayes ReportingA federal judge has ruled the government should change our currency; not to keep up with counterfeiters, but to help the blind.
Think of how much time you will be spending as you spend money during the Holiday Season. Now think of how difficult it would be if you could not tell the difference between a one, five, or fifty dollar bill. Tha'ts the point a federal judge is trying to make.
It could be a one or a one hundred dollar bill as far as Vicki Hathaway knows. That's why she folds each denomination in a different way.
Vickie Hathaway, Teacher of the Blind: "I teach most people to leave their ones flat like that. A lot of people fold their fives in halves like this. They will fold their tens like this the long way and they may fold their twenties in fours like this or this."
Hathaway has done this for so long, it's hard to imagine another way. That may be the U.S. Treasury's job. A federal judge says the government discriminates against blind people and paper currency should be changed.
Vickie Hathaway: "I think they've all wished there was some way different deep down, but they really haven't complained because I guess they didn't feel like they could change it."
Relying on strangers to help happens all the time.
Vickie Hathaway: "You can turn to the person behind you and say, ‘Tell me which one is the five,' because it's easy to be ripped off with the currency the way it is."
Changing currency size or adding brail would be expensive, hundreds of millions of dollars to change printing equipment. Nomi Musser says the peace of mind would be worth it.
Nomi Musser, Utah State Rehabilitation Center: "You wouldn't worry about whether you are getting the right stuff."
The federal judge made the ruling Tuesday and there has been no comment from the Treasury Department. The judge did not make specific suggestions, just demanded the government start working on it.
