IMPORTANCE OF OUR CURRENCY AND COINAGE
It’s no surprise why Director Olijar and many of you have spent your careers dedicated to the work of this organization. Currency plays a critical role in our economy. Economists know that money serves a number of traditional purposes: as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Put simply, our currency powers our economic engine. It enables people to exchange goods and services with each other more efficiently. But money also has a deeper social purpose. Currency is something we use and touch every day. When done right, it can tell us who we are, what we value, and what is possible.
Some of the first banknotes issued by the Continental Congress included unifying messages like “we are one.” Coins in the 20thcentury featured national heroes like Susan B. Anthony. She was the first woman to appear on a circulating U.S. coin. This year, the Mint has rolled out coinage with the faces of five remarkable American women. That includes trailblazers like Maya Angelou, poet and civil rights activist, and Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Chinese-American film star. But these coins are just the beginning of our work to ensure our currency and coinage reflect the full fabric of our nation. With your hard work, we will be introducing new currency designs in the coming years – including placing Harriet Tubman’s portrait on the $20 bill.
It’s customary that Treasury Secretaries provide their signature to be featured on our nation’s currency. You’d think this would be a straightforward process. But the founding fathers did not account for what seems to be a common attribute for Treasury Secretaries: terrible handwriting. My friend Tim Geithner famously had to change his signature in order to make it legible. In an interview back in 2012, he described that the change was made not for “elegance” but simply for “clarity.” President Obama joked during Jack Lew’s nomination as Secretary that he should try to make “at least one letter legible” in his signature. The good news is that President Biden did not make a similar request when he nominated me. But I’ll admit: I spent some quality time practicing my signature before submitting it to Director Olijar.
In all seriousness: I’m honored that, thanks to the hard work of this team, the first banknotes with my signature are being delivered this month to the Federal Reserve. They’ll be in circulation starting in the new year. Some will note that this is the first time the signature of a woman Treasury Secretary will be on a U.S. banknote. And the first time the signatures of two women will be on our currency.
But this is really not about me or Treasurer Malerba. To me, these notes represent the hard, ongoing work of the Treasury Department to strengthen our economy and advance our economic standing around the world. And it is also a reminder of the contributions of the women who have worked at Treasury and in the economics profession.
Let me say a bit about both.
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