What America was like in 1998
You were born in…
1998
This is where your story begins.
You’ve been here for
28
years
That’s about 10,200 days of history.
A first-class stamp in 1998 cost
32¢
Today the same stamp costs 82¢.
A dollar from 1998 would be worth
$2.07
today
Measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.
The federal minimum wage in 1998 was
$5.15
an hour
Today it’s $7.25.
The president in 1998
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
28
Super Bowls
From Super Bowl XXXIII in 1999 to Super Bowl LX in 2026.
You’re older than…
- Facebook launched2004. You were 6.
- The iPhone went on sale2007. You were 9.
- The iPad went on sale2010. You were 12.
So yes,
you’ve seen the worldchange a lot.
And you remember it.
Your 1998 story
That was 1998.
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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.