[nfbwatlk] An Inconvenient Question

[Alco Canfield]

I gguess it would depend on whether countries with accessible currency had
other laws ensuring or trying to ensure nondiscriminatory treatment of blind
people in the areas of employment, housing, transportation, etc.  If those
laws aren't in place, yes, I believe you are probably right re retail
employment.

I would love to see a list of countries which have accessible currency.  I
didn't think Canada's was.  At least it wasn't when I lived there, but
perhaps things have changed re this.

Alco 

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces+amcanfield=comcast.net at nfbnet.org
[mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces+amcanfield=comcast.net at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Freeman,Mike - TOS-DITT2
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 9:00 AM
To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfbwatlk] An Inconvenient Question

Fellow listers:
 
Recently there has been a fair amount of discussion, both on NFB-sponsored
lists and lists sponsored by other organizations, of the recent U.S.
District Court decision affirming the contention by the American Council of
the Blind that the U.S. Department of the Treasury is discriminating against
the blind by failing to provide for currency the value of which can be
distinguished by touch. Amid the cacaphony of debate concerning the merit of
the court decision and the lawsuit, there have been messages maintaining
that, putting aside legal debates, adoption of accessible currency in this
country would result in opening up of many retail and cashier jobs for the
blind. If this assertion is true, it seems to me that there ought to be an
appreciably larger proportion of blind persons holding retail and cashier
jobs in countries with tactily-differentiable currency than is the case here
in the U.S. I wonder if anyone (say an up-and-coming sociology student
looking for ways to waste government R&D money) has looked into this
question? The results might be interesting.
 
In fact, I suspect that the results might fly in the face of common
sense: I'd be willing to bet some of that inaccessible U.S. currency that
the opposite holds true. I'll bet that the unemployment rate (not counting
jobs in government or in professions set aside for the blind such as selling
lottery tickets in Spain or, to some extent, massage therapy in Japan) is no
lower for the blind and visually impaired in countries with accessible
currency than it is here in the U.S. Certainly the unemployment rate for the
blind and visually impaired in Canada, a country with purportedly-accessible
currency, is as high as it is here in the U.S.
 
Just something to think about.
 
Mike Freeman
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