$100 in 1969 is worth $490 in 2002,
because prices increased 390.2% over that period, an average of
4.93% a year.
$100 in 1969 has
the same buying power as
$490
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
390.2%
Average inflation rate
4.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$490
Price difference ($100 base)
$390
CPI in 1969
36.7
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1969 → 2002
$490
$100 in 2002 → 1969
$20.40
What happened to prices between 1969 and 2002
Between 1969 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 36.7 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 390.2%, which works out to an average of
4.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1969 bought what
$0.20 buys in 2002: the 1969 dollar
lost 79.6% of its purchasing power over
these 33 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 2002 at the same ratio, 4.90: $1,000 becomes
$4,902, and $10,000 becomes $49,019.
Amount in 1969
Value in 2002
$1.00
$4.90
$5.00
$24.51
$10.00
$49.02
$20.00
$98.04
$50.00
$245
$100
$490
$500
$2,451
$1,000
$4,902
$5,000
$24,510
$10,000
$49,019
$100,000
$490,191
$1,000,000
$4,901,907
Inflation by spending category, 1969–2002
Between 1969 and 2002, medical care rose the most, up 795.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 118.3%, against 390.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1969
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1969 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.93%
$490
Medical care
6.87%
$895
Housing
5.19%
$530
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.97%
$496
Energy
4.94%
$491
Food
4.83%
$475
Transportation
4.51%
$428
Apparel
2.39%
$218
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1969: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1969 to 2002
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.21% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1969–2002 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$356
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$469
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$490
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1969
$100 from 1969 had already become $293 by
1985, on its way to $490 in 2002; 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 1998.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1969 had the buying
power of $490; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1969 to 2002: $100 is worth $490 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1969 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-2002/