$100 in 1964 is worth $400 in 1989,
because prices increased 300.0% over that period, an average of
5.70% a year.
$100 in 1964 has
the same buying power as
$400
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
300.0%
Average inflation rate
5.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$400
Price difference ($100 base)
$300
CPI in 1964
31
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1964
1.31%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1964 → 1989
$400
$100 in 1989 → 1964
$25.00
What happened to prices between 1964 and 1989
Between 1964 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 31 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 300.0%, which works out to an average of
5.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1964 bought what
$0.25 buys in 1989: the 1964 dollar
lost 75.0% of its purchasing power over
these 25 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1964, matching 1963’s pace
even as a large federal tax cut took effect that year. The Revenue Act of
1964, signed February 26, lowered individual and corporate tax rates
significantly, the cut Kennedy had proposed the year before his death and
Johnson pushed through Congress as a Keynesian bet that lower taxes would
spur enough growth without stoking prices. Congress reshaped civil rights
law that July 2, when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination
based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin in employment
and public accommodations, the most sweeping civil rights legislation
since Reconstruction. Vietnam policy shifted that August, when Congress
passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution after reported attacks on U.S. Navy
destroyers, authorizing Johnson to use military force in Vietnam without
a formal declaration of war. American pop culture changed that February
too: the Beatles landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport and played the Ed
Sullivan Show two days later for an estimated 73 million viewers,
igniting the “British Invasion.” Consumer prices finished 1964 213.1%
above their 1913 level. First-class postage held at 5
cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
Every 1964 amount converts to 1989 at the same ratio, 4.00: $1,000 becomes
$4,000, and $10,000 becomes $40,000.
Amount in 1964
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.00
$5.00
$20.00
$10.00
$40.00
$20.00
$80.00
$50.00
$200
$100
$400
$500
$2,000
$1,000
$4,000
$5,000
$20,000
$10,000
$40,000
$100,000
$400,000
$1,000,000
$4,000,000
Inflation by spending category, 1964–1989
Between 1964 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 506.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 150.7%, against 300.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1964
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1964 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.70%
$400
Medical care
7.48%
$607
Energy
5.90%
$419
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.70%
$399
Food
5.67%
$397
Transportation
5.30%
$363
Apparel
3.75%
$251
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1964: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1964 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (3.81% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1964–1989 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1964, at end
1964–1970
3.81%
25.2%
$125
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$266
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$400
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1964
$100 from 1964 had already become $184 by
1976, on its way to $400 in 1989; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 1.6% in 1965.
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1964 had the buying
power of $400; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1964 to 1989: $100 is worth $400 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1964-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1964 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1964-to-1989/