What America was like in 1985
You were born in…
1985
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
41
years
That’s about 15,000 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1985 cost
22¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1985 would be worth
$3.13
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The federal minimum wage in 1985 was
$3.35
an hour
Today it’s $7.25.
The president in 1985
Ronald Reagan
Since then you’ve lived under 7 presidents.
The 1980 census counted
227 million
Americans
By 2020 there were 331 million of us.
You’ve been around for
41
Super Bowls
From Super Bowl XX in 1986 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- The World Wide Web opened to the public1991. You were 6.
- Amazon sold its first book1995. You were 10.
- Google was founded1998. You were 13.
- Facebook launched2004. You were 19.
- The iPhone went on sale2007. You were 22.
- The iPad went on sale2010. You were 25.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1985 story
That was 1985.
Share it with someone who remembers it too.
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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.