| Denomination: | Twenty dollars |
| Country: | United States |
| Value: | $20 |
| Width Mm: | 156 |
| Height Mm: | 66.3 |
| Weight G: | c. 1.0[1] |
| Security Features: | Security fibers, watermark, security thread, color shifting ink, micro printing, raised printing, EURion constellation |
| Paper Type: | 75% cotton 25% linen |
| Years Of Printing: | 1861–present |
| Obverse: | US $20 Series 2006 Obverse.jpg |
| Obverse Design: | Andrew Jackson |
| Obverse Design Date: | 2003 |
| Reverse: | US $20 Series 2006 Reverse.jpg |
| Reverse Design: | White House |
| Reverse Design Date: | 2003 |
The United States twenty-dollar bill (US$20) is a denomination of U.S. currency. A portrait of Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president (1829–1837), has been featured on the obverse of the bill since 1928; the White House is featured on the reverse.
As of December 2018, the average life of a $20 bill in circulation is 7.8 years before it is replaced due to wear.[2] Twenty-dollar bills are delivered by Federal Reserve Banks in violet straps.
Andrew Jackson has appeared on the $20 bill since the series of 1928. The placement of Jackson on the $20 bill is considered ironic; as president, he vehemently opposed both the National Bank and use of paper money. After the president of the Second Bank of the United States, Nicholas Biddle, defied Jackson and requested the renewal of the charter of the Second Bank in an election year, Jackson responded by making it a goal of his administration to destroy the National Bank.[3] [4] Jackson prevailed over Biddle, and the absence of the Second Bank contributed to a real estate bubble in the mid-1830s. The bubble collapsed in the Panic of 1837, leading to a deep depression.[5]
Given Jackson's opposition to the concept of a National Bank, his presence on the $20 bill was controversial from the start. When pressed to reveal why the various images were chosen for the new bills, Treasury officials denied there was any political motivation. Instead, they insisted that the images were based only on their relative familiarity to the public. An article in the June 30, 1929 issue of the New York Times, stated "The Treasury Department maintains stoutly that the men chosen for small bills, which are naturally the ones in most demand, were so placed because their faces were most familiar to the majority of people."[6] It is also true that 1928 coincides with the 100th anniversary of Jackson's election as president, but no evidence has surfaced that would suggest that this was a factor in the decision. According to more recent inquiries of the U.S. Treasury: "Treasury Department records do not reveal the reason that portraits of these particular statesmen were chosen in preference to those of other persons of equal importance and prominence."[7]
| Type | Series | Register | Treasurer | Seal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Bank Note Types 1 & 2 | 1929 | Jones | Brown | ||
| Federal Reserve Bank Note | 1928A | Jones | Woods | Brown |
| Type | Series | Treasurer | Secretary | Seal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold Certificate | 1928 | Gold | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1928 | Mellon | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1928A | Woods | Mellon | Green | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1928B | Woods | Mellon | Green | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1928C | Woods | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1934 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1934 Hawaii | Julian | Morgenthau | Brown | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1934A | Julian | Morgenthau | Green | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1934A Hawaii | Julian | Morgenthau | Brown | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1934B | Julian | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1934C | Julian | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1934D | Snyder | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1950 | Clark | Snyder | Green | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1950A | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1950B | Priest | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1950C | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1950D | Dillon | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1950E | Granahan | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1963 | Granahan | Dillon | Green | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1963A | Granahan | Fowler | Green | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1969 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1969A | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1969B | Connally | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1969C | Bañuelos | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1974 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1977 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1981 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1981A | Regan | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1985 | Ortega | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1988A | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1990 | Villalpando | Brady | Green | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1993 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1995 | Withrow | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 1996 | Withrow | Rubin | Green | |
| Federal Reserve Note | 1999 | Withrow | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 2001 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 2004 | Marin | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 2004A | Snow | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 2006 | Cabral | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 2009 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 2013 | Rios | Green | ||
| Federal Reserve Note | 2017 | Green | |||
| Federal Reserve Note | 2017A | Carranza | Mnuchin | Green |
In a campaign called "Women on 20s", selected voters were asked to choose three of 15 female candidates to have a portrait on the bill. The goal was to have a woman on the bill by 2020, the centennial of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote.[13] Among the candidates on the petition were Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation.[14]
On May 12, 2015, Tubman was announced as the winning candidate of that "grassroots" poll with more than 600,000 people surveyed and more than 118,000 choosing Tubman, followed by Roosevelt, Parks and Mankiller.[15]
On June 17, 2015, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that a woman's portrait would be featured on a redesigned bill by 2020, replacing Alexander Hamilton.[16] However, that decision was reversed, at least in part due to Hamilton's surging popularity following the hit Broadway musical Hamilton.[17]
On April 20, 2016, Lew officially announced that Alexander Hamilton would remain on the bill, while Andrew Jackson would be replaced by Tubman on the front of the bill, with Jackson appearing on the reverse.[18] [19] Lew simultaneously announced that the five- and ten-dollar bills would also be redesigned in the coming years and put into production in the next decade.[19] However, as the $20 was not scheduled to be replaced until after the $10, this moved the production date of the referenced bill containing Tubman back frustrating supporters of placing a woman on a bill. Secretary Lew reiterated that the $10 would be redesigned first.[20]
While campaigning for president, Donald Trump responded to the announcement that Tubman would replace Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill. The day following the announcement Trump called Tubman "fantastic", but stated that he would oppose replacing Jackson with Tubman, calling the replacement "pure political correctness", and suggested that Tubman could perhaps be put on another denomination instead.[21]
On August 31, 2017, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he would not commit to putting Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill, explaining "People have been on the bills for a long period of time. This is something we'll consider; right now we have a lot more important issues to focus on."[22] According to a Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) spokesperson, the next redesigned bill will be the ten-dollar bill, not set to be released into circulation until at least 2026.[23] [24]
In May 2019, Mnuchin stated that no new imagery for the new 2028 $20 bill would be unveiled until 2026. He also reaffirmed that the new $20 bill would not be moved up ahead of the new $10 or $50 bills due to counterfeiting security concerns regarding the $10 and $50. Mnuchin would not say whether he supported keeping Tubman on the redesigned $20. He said that the decision will be left to whoever is Treasury secretary in 2026.[25] Democratic members of the House of Representatives asked Mnuchin to provide more specific reasons for the design release delay. (The production date of new $20, 2028, was unchanged from timeline announced in 2016 by the Obama administration)[26] The Director of the BEP, Len Olijar, released a statement saying that the "BEP was never going to unveil a note design in 2020" and that the illustration used by the New York Times was not a new $20 note.[27] Later in June, the Treasury Department's acting inspector general, Rich Delmar, sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stating that his office would investigate the issue.[28]
In June 2020, the Office of Inspector General released a report detailing the results of its investigation, which concluded that the $20 note's position in the redesign sequence had not changed, that the earlier announcement of the 2020 date by the Obama administration "was made outside of the note development governance structure and without the recommendation of the ACD" (referring to the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence Steering Committee), that the $10 note redesign set to precede the $20 redesign had already been delayed to no earlier than 2026 by 2016, and that the $20 note had not yet entered the banknote design process and was not expected to be production-ready until 2030.[29]
In January 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed President Joe Biden will accelerate the Tubman redesign.[30] However, a 2022 internal department message from the Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, reaffirmed the 2030 debut originally planned by the Trump Administration.[31] [32]