What America was like in 1987
You were born in…
1987
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
39
years
That’s about 14,200 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1987 cost
22¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1987 would be worth
$2.97
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The federal minimum wage in 1987 was
$3.35
an hour
Today it’s $7.25.
The president in 1987
Ronald Reagan
Since then you’ve lived under 7 presidents.
The 1990 census counted
249 million
Americans
By 2020 there were 331 million of us.
You’ve been around for
39
Super Bowls
From Super Bowl XXII in 1988 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- The World Wide Web opened to the public1991. You were 4.
- Amazon sold its first book1995. You were 8.
- Google was founded1998. You were 11.
- Facebook launched2004. You were 17.
- The iPhone went on sale2007. You were 20.
- The iPad went on sale2010. You were 23.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1987 story
That was 1987.
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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.