What America was like in 1971
You were born in…
1971
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
55
years
That’s about 20,100 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1971 cost
8¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1971 would be worth
$8.32
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The federal minimum wage in 1971 was
$1.60
an hour
Today it’s $7.25.
The president in 1971
Richard Nixon
Since then you’ve lived under 10 presidents.
The 1970 census counted
203 million
Americans
By 2020 there were 331 million of us.
You’ve been around for
55
Super Bowls
From Super Bowl VI in 1972 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- Pong arrived in arcades1972. You were 1.
- A barcode was scanned at a store checkout for the first time1974. You were 3.
- Star Wars opened in theaters1977. You were 6.
- The Sony Walkman went on sale in Japan1979. You were 8.
- MTV started playing music videos1981. You were 10.
- Compact discs reached American stores1983. You were 12.
…and 7 more on our list.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1971 story
That was 1971.
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Where these numbers come from
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), U.S. city average, all items, 1982-84=100
- U.S. Postal Service, Rates for Domestic Letters Since 1863
- U.S. Department of Labor, history of federal minimum wage rates
- U.S. Census Bureau, decennial census resident population
- Presidents and milestones: widely documented public records.