The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
$156
To determine the total amount of money Luis has, we must first identify all currently circulating United States bills that depict a U.S. president. The U.S. Treasury currently issues seven denominations of paper currency for public circulation: the $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills. The core of the problem is to filter this list based on the portrait featured on each bill, including only those of former presidents.
Let’s systematically review each denomination. The $1 bill features George Washington, the nation’s first president. The $2 bill, which is still in production and considered circulating currency despite its relative rarity, features Thomas Jefferson, the third president. The $5 bill portrays Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president, who led the country through the Civil War. The $20 bill currently features Andrew Jackson, the seventh president. Lastly, the $50 bill displays the portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, the eighteenth president and a victorious Union general. These five bills, with values of $1, $2, $5, $20, and $50, all satisfy the condition of featuring a president.
Conversely, two of the most common bills in circulation must be excluded from our total. The $10 bill features Alexander Hamilton, an influential Founding Father and the first Secretary of the Treasury, but he was never elected president. Likewise, the widely used $100 bill features Benjamin Franklin, a distinguished diplomat, scientist, and Founding Father, who also did not hold the presidential office. Furthermore, any historical high-denomination bills, such as the $500 bill (President William McKinley) or the $1,000 bill (President Grover Cleveland), are not included because the U.S. government officially stopped issuing them for public circulation in July 1969.
With the qualifying denominations identified ($1, $2, $5, $20, and $50), we can proceed with the calculation. The sum of one of each of these bills is:
$1 + $2 + $5 + $20 + $50 = $78.
The question specifies that Luis has “two apiece,” meaning two of each specific bill. Therefore, to find his total wealth, we multiply the single-set sum by two:
$78 x 2 = $156.
Thus, Luis has a total of $156.
