What America was like in 1989
You were born in…
1989
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
37
years
That’s about 13,500 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1989 cost
25¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1989 would be worth
$2.72
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The federal minimum wage in 1989 was
$3.35
an hour
Today it’s $7.25.
The presidents in 1989
Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush
Since then you’ve lived under 6 presidents.
The 1990 census counted
249 million
Americans
By 2020 there were 331 million of us.
You’ve been around for
37
Super Bowls
From Super Bowl XXIV in 1990 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- The World Wide Web opened to the public1991. You were 2.
- Amazon sold its first book1995. You were 6.
- Google was founded1998. You were 9.
- Facebook launched2004. You were 15.
- The iPhone went on sale2007. You were 18.
- The iPad went on sale2010. You were 21.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1989 story
That was 1989.
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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.