“The new design is more secure than ever before. We believe it will be extremely effective in discouraging counterfeiters,” said Treasury Secretary John Snow. “It’s also a lovely piece of currency, maintaining the historic look and feel of a greenback while incorporating the elements of other colors that are very important to us in this country: red, white, and blue.” The new bill incorporates security features introduced in the 1990s, including a watermark and a security thread-both visible when the bill is held up to the light-and color shifting ink. The U.S. Treasury redesigns bills every 5 to 10 years to make counterfeiting more difficult. The government estimates that one out of every ten thousand bills is counterfeit, a low percentage, but that means upwards of $44 million dollars in use are fake.
