What America was like in 1997
You were born in…
1997
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
29
years
That’s about 10,600 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1997 cost
32¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1997 would be worth
$2.10
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The federal minimum wage in 1997 was
$4.75
an hour
Today it’s $7.25.
The president in 1997
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
29
Super Bowls
From Super Bowl XXXII in 1998 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- Google was founded1998. You were 1.
- Facebook launched2004. You were 7.
- The iPhone went on sale2007. You were 10.
- The iPad went on sale2010. You were 13.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1997 story
That was 1997.
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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.