$100 in 1970 is worth $257 in 1983,
because prices increased 156.7% over that period, an average of
7.52% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$257
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
156.7%
Average inflation rate
7.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$257
Price difference ($100 base)
$157
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1970 → 1983
$257
$100 in 1983 → 1970
$38.96
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1983
Between 1970 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 156.7%, which works out to an average of
7.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.39 buys in 1983: the 1970 dollar
lost 61.0% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1983 at the same ratio, 2.57: $1,000 becomes
$2,567, and $10,000 becomes $25,670.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1983
$1.00
$2.57
$5.00
$12.84
$10.00
$25.67
$20.00
$51.34
$50.00
$128
$100
$257
$500
$1,284
$1,000
$2,567
$5,000
$12,835
$10,000
$25,670
$100,000
$256,701
$1,000,000
$2,567,010
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1983
Between 1970 and 1983, energy rose the most, up 291.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 69.3%, against 156.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.52%
$257
Energy
11.08%
$392
Medical care
8.70%
$296
Housing
8.04%
$273
Transportation
7.78%
$265
Food
7.42%
$254
Core (all items less food & energy)
7.11%
$244
Apparel
4.13%
$169
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1983
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (6.52% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1983 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1970, at end
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$212
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$257
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $147 by
1976, on its way to $257 in 1983; 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 3.2% in 1972.
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $257; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1983: $100 is worth $257 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1983/