$100 in 1970 is worth $156 in 1977,
because prices increased 56.2% over that period, an average of
6.58% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$156
in 1977
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.2%
Average inflation rate
6.58% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$156
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.19
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1977
60.6
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1977
6.50%
$100 in 1970 → 1977
$156
$100 in 1977 → 1970
$64.03
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1977
Between 1970 and 1977, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 60.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.2%, which works out to an average of
6.58% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1977: the 1970 dollar
lost 36.0% of its purchasing power over
these 7 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 1977 at the same ratio, 1.56: $1,000 becomes
$1,562, and $10,000 becomes $15,619.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1977
$1.00
$1.56
$5.00
$7.81
$10.00
$15.62
$20.00
$31.24
$50.00
$78.09
$100
$156
$500
$781
$1,000
$1,562
$5,000
$7,809
$10,000
$15,619
$100,000
$156,186
$1,000,000
$1,561,856
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1977
Between 1970 and 1977, energy rose the most, up 93.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 32.8%, against 56.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1977, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.58%
$156
Energy
9.91%
$194
Medical care
7.66%
$168
Food
7.61%
$167
Housing
6.72%
$158
Transportation
6.69%
$157
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.91%
$150
Apparel
4.13%
$133
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 $156 in 1977; 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 1977, prices rose 6.5% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $156; the year's average CPI of 60.6 is the level
behind every 1977 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.5% in 1977, ticking back up from 1976’s
5.8% as the economic recovery strengthened, wages climbed, and energy costs
pushed higher again. The year opened with a warning about that energy
dependence: record cold across the Midwest and Northeast in January and
February strained natural gas supplies so badly that schools and factories in
several states shut down for days to conserve fuel. Jimmy Carter, inaugurated
that January, made energy policy a centerpiece of his presidency, and
Congress created the cabinet-level Department of Energy that August to
consolidate programs built up piecemeal since the 1973 oil embargo. Culture
offered some relief from the anxiety: released that May, Star Wars became the
highest-grossing film in history to that point, drawing lines around theater
blocks for months. The year also closed an era in a different way. Elvis
Presley was found dead at his Graceland home on August 16 at age 42, drawing
tens of thousands of mourners to Memphis. A median household earned $13,572
in 1977, a new home sold for a median $48,800, and gas averaged 62 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices stood 512.1% above their 1913 level,
with the energy anxieties of the year setting up the harder shocks of 1978
and 1979.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1977: $100 is worth $156 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1977/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1977. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1977/