What America was like in 1930
You were born in…
1930
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
96
years
That’s about 35,100 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1930 cost
2¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1930 would be worth
$20.18
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The minimum wage?
Didn’t exist yet.
The first federal minimum wage arrived in October 1938: 25¢ an hour.
The president in 1930
Herbert Hoover
Since then you’ve lived under 16 presidents.
The 1930 census counted
123 million
Americans
By 2020 there were 331 million of us.
You’ve been around for
60
Super Bowls
Every single one of them. From Super Bowl I in 1967 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- The Empire State Building opened1931. You were 1.
- Social Security became law1935. You were 5.
- The Golden Gate Bridge opened1937. You were 7.
- RCA introduced television to the public at the New York World’s Fair1939. You were 9.
- Bell Labs invented the transistor1947. You were 17.
- Swanson sold its first TV dinner1953. You were 23.
…and 25 more on our list.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1930 story
That was 1930.
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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.