What America was like in 1996
You were born in…
1996
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
30
years
That’s about 11,000 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1996 cost
32¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1996 would be worth
$2.15
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The federal minimum wage in 1996 was
$4.25
an hour
Today it’s $7.25.
The president in 1996
Bill Clinton
Since then you’ve lived under 5 presidents.
The 2000 census counted
281 million
Americans
By 2020 there were 331 million of us.
You’ve been around for
30
Super Bowls
From Super Bowl XXXI in 1997 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- Google was founded1998. You were 2.
- Facebook launched2004. You were 8.
- The iPhone went on sale2007. You were 11.
- The iPad went on sale2010. You were 14.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1996 story
That was 1996.
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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.