$100 in 1970 is worth $127 in 1974,
because prices increased 27.1% over that period, an average of
6.17% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$127
in 1974
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
27.1%
Average inflation rate
6.17% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$127
Price difference ($100 base)
$27.06
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1974
49.3
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1974
11.04%
$100 in 1970 → 1974
$127
$100 in 1974 → 1970
$78.70
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1974
Between 1970 and 1974, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 49.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 27.1%, which works out to an average of
6.17% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.79 buys in 1974: the 1970 dollar
lost 21.3% of its purchasing power over
these 4 years.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
Every 1970 amount converts to 1974 at the same ratio, 1.27: $1,000 becomes
$1,271, and $10,000 becomes $12,706.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1974
$1.00
$1.27
$5.00
$6.35
$10.00
$12.71
$20.00
$25.41
$50.00
$63.53
$100
$127
$500
$635
$1,000
$1,271
$5,000
$6,353
$10,000
$12,706
$100,000
$127,062
$1,000,000
$1,270,619
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1974
Between 1970 and 1974, energy rose the most, up 49.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 17.2%, against 27.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1974, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.17%
$127
Energy
10.56%
$149
Food
8.88%
$141
Housing
5.91%
$126
Medical care
5.67%
$125
Transportation
5.13%
$122
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.90%
$121
Apparel
4.05%
$117
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $108 by
1972, on its way to $127 in 1974; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1974, prices rose 11.0% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $127; the year's average CPI of 49.3 is the level
behind every 1974 figure on this page.
1974 was the year the postwar economy broke its old rules. Consumer prices
rose 11.0%, the fastest annual increase since 1947, as the Arab oil embargo
that ran from October 1973 to March 1974 roughly quadrupled the price of
crude oil worldwide. Gasoline, which had averaged 38.5 cents a gallon in
1973, jumped to 53.2 cents, and shortages forced many states into odd-even
rationing at the pump. Nixon’s wage and price controls, in place in some form
since 1971, expired at the end of April, removing the last brake on prices
just as the oil shock hit. Nixon himself resigned in August over Watergate,
and Gerald Ford’s response to inflation, a voluntary “Whip Inflation Now”
campaign built around lapel buttons, became a symbol of how little
conventional politics could do against the problem. Prices kept climbing even
as the economy weakened: a recession that started in November 1973 dragged
on, the Dow fell to a bear-market bottom of 577.60 in December, and
unemployment was already rising toward the 9% it would reach in 1975. The
combination of rising prices and a shrinking economy gave the decade its
name: stagflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1974: $100 is worth $127 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1974/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1974. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1974/