Between 1922 and 1980, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.8 to 82.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 390.5%, which works out to an average of
2.78% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1922 bought what
$0.20 buys in 1980.
Consumer prices fell another 6.1% in 1922, the second straight year of
decline, even as the broader economy climbed out of the Depression of
1920-21 and industrial production rebounded. The CPI had now given back
roughly a third of its wartime runup, though it stayed well above the
1913 baseline. Congress moved to shield that recovery from
foreign competition: the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, signed September 21,
raised duties on hundreds of imported goods to some of the highest levels in
U.S. history, a policy meant to protect farmers and manufacturers still
adjusting to postwar prices. Labor tension flared even as prices fell.
Roughly half a million bituminous coal miners struck that April over wage
cuts employers had imposed as prices dropped, and hundreds of thousands of
railroad shop workers walked out in July in a separate dispute over pay and
work rules, together the largest strike wave since 1919. Both disputes
dragged on for months and drew federal mediation before ending without full
concessions for the workers. First-class postage remained at 2 cents.
The headline number is an average. Individual categories moved very differently over this
period. Here is what $100 of 1922 spending costs in 1980, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1922 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.78%
$490
Food
3.08%
$583
Apparel
2.12%
$337
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1922: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1980
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1922 to 1980: $100 is worth $490 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1922-to-1980/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1922 to 1980. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1922-to-1980/