What America was like in 1999
You were born in…
1999
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
27
years
That’s about 9,900 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1999 cost
33¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1999 would be worth
$2.02
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The federal minimum wage in 1999 was
$5.15
an hour
Today it’s $7.25.
The president in 1999
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
27
Super Bowls
From Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- Facebook launched2004. You were 5.
- The iPhone went on sale2007. You were 8.
- The iPad went on sale2010. You were 11.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1999 story
That was 1999.
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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.