$100 in 1970 is worth $147 in 1976,
because prices increased 46.6% over that period, an average of
6.59% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$147
in 1976
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
46.6%
Average inflation rate
6.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$147
Price difference ($100 base)
$46.65
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1976
56.9
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1976
5.76%
$100 in 1970 → 1976
$147
$100 in 1976 → 1970
$68.19
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1976
Between 1970 and 1976, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 56.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 46.6%, which works out to an average of
6.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.68 buys in 1976: the 1970 dollar
lost 31.8% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1976 at the same ratio, 1.47: $1,000 becomes
$1,466, and $10,000 becomes $14,665.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1976
$1.00
$1.47
$5.00
$7.33
$10.00
$14.66
$20.00
$29.33
$50.00
$73.32
$100
$147
$500
$733
$1,000
$1,466
$5,000
$7,332
$10,000
$14,665
$100,000
$146,649
$1,000,000
$1,466,495
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1976
Between 1970 and 1976, energy rose the most, up 76.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 27.0%, against 46.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1976, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.59%
$147
Energy
9.97%
$177
Food
7.82%
$157
Medical care
7.34%
$153
Housing
6.73%
$148
Transportation
6.62%
$147
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.85%
$141
Apparel
4.07%
$127
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 $114 by
1973, on its way to $147 in 1976; 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 1976, prices rose 5.8% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $147; the year's average CPI of 56.9 is the level
behind every 1976 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.8% in 1976, the calmest pace since 1972,
as the economy pulled out of the 1973-75 recession and price growth settled
to roughly half its 1974 peak. The recovery gave Americans
room to celebrate: tall ships filled New York Harbor and fireworks lit cities
nationwide on July 4 for the country’s bicentennial, a rare moment of shared
celebration after Vietnam and Watergate. Politically, Jimmy Carter, a former
Georgia governor running as a Washington outsider, defeated incumbent Gerald
Ford that November, campaigning on restoring trust in government and bringing
down inflation and unemployment together. In a California garage, Steve
Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer that April to
sell the Apple I, a bare circuit board aimed at electronics hobbyists, a
business that looked far from consequential at the time. First-class
postage, which had risen to 13 cents that past December 31, held there
through the year, the longest stretch without a rate change since the Postal
Service’s creation. A median household earned $12,686 in 1976, a new home
sold for a median $44,200, and gas averaged 59 cents a gallon. Consumer
prices stood 474.7% above their 1913 level, a calm interlude
before inflation turned back up.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1976: $100 is worth $147 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1976/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1976. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1976/