$100 in 1969 is worth $338 in 1989,
because prices increased 237.9% over that period, an average of
6.28% a year.
$100 in 1969 has
the same buying power as
$338
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
237.9%
Average inflation rate
6.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$338
Price difference ($100 base)
$238
CPI in 1969
36.7
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1969 → 1989
$338
$100 in 1989 → 1969
$29.60
What happened to prices between 1969 and 1989
Between 1969 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 36.7 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 237.9%, which works out to an average of
6.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1969 bought what
$0.30 buys in 1989: the 1969 dollar
lost 70.4% of its purchasing power over
these 20 years.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
Every 1969 amount converts to 1989 at the same ratio, 3.38: $1,000 becomes
$3,379, and $10,000 becomes $33,787.
Amount in 1969
Value in 1989
$1.00
$3.38
$5.00
$16.89
$10.00
$33.79
$20.00
$67.57
$50.00
$169
$100
$338
$500
$1,689
$1,000
$3,379
$5,000
$16,894
$10,000
$33,787
$100,000
$337,875
$1,000,000
$3,378,747
Inflation by spending category, 1969–1989
Between 1969 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 368.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 108.8%, against 237.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1969
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1969 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.28%
$338
Medical care
8.02%
$468
Energy
6.91%
$380
Housing
6.64%
$362
Food
6.27%
$337
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.25%
$336
Transportation
5.98%
$320
Apparel
3.75%
$209
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1969: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1969 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (4.65% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1969–1989 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1969, at end
1969–1970
5.72%
5.7%
$106
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$225
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$338
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1969
$100 from 1969 had already become $198 by
1979, on its way to $338 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 1.9% in 1986.
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1969 had the buying
power of $338; 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 1969 to 1989: $100 is worth $338 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1969 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-1989/