Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has sparked outrage from lawmakers after announcing that American hero Harriet Tubman will not appear on the $20 bill as planned for 2020.

The US Treasury will not introduce a redesigned $20 bill picturing escaped slave and abolitionist Tubman next year, Mnuchin said on Wednesday.

In 2016, the Treasury Department said it would replace former President Andrew Jackson's image on the front of the bill with that of Tubman by 2020, along with redesigns of the $5 and $10 bill.

Democratic Rep Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, grilled Mnuchin on the status of the redesign of the $20, $10, & $5 bills proposed during the Obama Administration at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday morning.

When Pressley asked Mnuchin whether or not the redesign will be complete by the 2020 deadline, Mnuchin said he was not focused on making any changes to their imagery.

Democratic Rep Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, grilled Mnuchin on the status of the redesign of the $20, $10, & $5 bills proposed during the Obama Administration at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday morning

When Pressley asked Mnuchin (pictured) whether or not the redesign will be complete by the 2020 deadline, Mnuchin said he was not focused on making any changes to their imagery

Mnuchin made it clear that the 'primary reason we've looked at redesigning the currency is for counterfeiting issues' and not to change the current imagery in honor of one of the bravest black heroes in American history.

'We will meet the security feature redesign (goal) in 2020. The imagery feature will not be an issue that comes up until most likely 2026,' Mnuchin told lawmakers.

'It is not a decision that is likely to come until way past my term, even if I serve a second term for the president, so I am not focused on that at the moment,' Mnuchin added.

Mnuchin said the new $20 bill features will not come out until 2028, but the $10 and $50 bill will come out with new features beforehand.

He declined to tell lawmakers in the hearing if he supported putting Tubman on the bill.

'People other than white men built this county. And Sec Mnuchin agrees, yet he refuses to update our #currency,' Rep Pressley tweeted shortly after she grilled Mnuchin

Barack Obama's former senior advisor, Valerie Jarret, also shared her sentiments about Tubman being featured on the bill

President Donald Trump has called the inclusion of Tubman on the $20 bill an example of 'pure political correctness'.

As a presidential candidate, Trump suggested Tubman would be better-suited for the $2 bill, a note that is not widely circulated.

Trump has expressed admiration for Jackson and had a portrait of him put in the Oval Office.

The Trump administration has angered several people who believe Tubman's rightful place should be on the $20 bill.

'People other than white men built this county. And Sec Mnuchin agrees, yet he refuses to update our #currency,' Rep Pressley tweeted shortly after she grilled Mnuchin.

'#HarrietTubman, #MarianAnderson & #EleanorRoosevelt are iconic Americans & it's past time that our [sic] reflects that,' Pressley added.

Barack Obama's former senior advisor, Valerie Jarret, also shared her sentiments about Tubman being featured on the bill.

'Harriet Tubman belongs on the $20. Not moving forward is an insult not just to the African American community, but to all Americans who believe we should honor an American who contributed so greatly to the nation’s history,' Jarret tweeted.

Activist Bree Newsome Bass tweeted: 'The white supremacists running this country are not about to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill to have y'all contemplating racism and resistance every time y'all go to the ATM. Y'all gonna get that good ol' agent of genocide Andrew Jackson.'

Writer Wajahat Ali also said: 'They're out here trying to erase Harriet Tubman but fighting for Robert E Lee statues. We see you.'

The decision to put Tubman on the $20 bill followed a 10-month process of outreach from the Treasury Department on which woman should be featured on the note.

Former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced the redesign plan for Tubman to replace Jackson on the $20 bill in 2016 as part of an effort to get more women on US currency.

The plan was set to go into effect in 2020.

However, Jackson would have remained on the back of the $20 bill.

Mnuchin said there would be no change to the $20 until 2026, but Obama's Jacob Lew (pictured in April 2016) had scheduled a new $20 with Tubman for 2020

There have been no women depicted on US bills since former first lady Martha Washington, who was featured on the $1 silver certificate from 1891 to 1896, and Native American woman Pocahontas, who was included in a group image on the $20 bill from 1865 to 1869.

Other women, including Native American interpreter Sacagawea, suffragist Susan B. Anthony and author and activist Helen Keller have been featured on coins.

Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, has been criticized for his ownership of slaves and treatment of American Indians.

Tubman was born into slavery and grew up on a Maryland plantation, escaping in her late 20s.

She returned to the South to help hundreds of slaves to freedom and later worked as a Union spy during the Civil War. She died in 1913.