$100 in 1969 is worth $585 in 2009,
because prices increased 484.6% over that period, an average of
4.51% a year.
$100 in 1969 has
the same buying power as
$585
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
484.6%
Average inflation rate
4.51% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$585
Price difference ($100 base)
$485
CPI in 1969
36.7
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1969 → 2009
$585
$100 in 2009 → 1969
$17.11
What happened to prices between 1969 and 2009
Between 1969 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 36.7 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 484.6%, which works out to an average of
4.51% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1969 bought what
$0.17 buys in 2009: the 1969 dollar
lost 82.9% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 2009 at the same ratio, 5.85: $1,000 becomes
$5,846, and $10,000 becomes $58,457.
Amount in 1969
Value in 2009
$1.00
$5.85
$5.00
$29.23
$10.00
$58.46
$20.00
$117
$50.00
$292
$100
$585
$500
$2,923
$1,000
$5,846
$5,000
$29,228
$10,000
$58,457
$100,000
$584,569
$1,000,000
$5,845,695
Inflation by spending category, 1969–2009
Between 1969 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 1077.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 111.4%, against 484.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1969
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1969 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.51%
$585
Medical care
6.36%
$1,177
Energy
5.27%
$779
Housing
4.74%
$638
Food
4.53%
$587
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.45%
$571
Transportation
4.12%
$502
Apparel
1.89%
$211
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1969: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1969 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1969–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$585
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1969
$100 from 1969 had already become $338 by
1989, on its way to $585 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1969 had the buying
power of $585; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1969 to 2009: $100 is worth $585 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1969 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-2009/