$100 in 1970 is worth $268 in 1984,
because prices increased 167.8% over that period, an average of
7.29% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$268
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
167.8%
Average inflation rate
7.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$268
Price difference ($100 base)
$168
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1970 → 1984
$268
$100 in 1984 → 1970
$37.34
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1984
Between 1970 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 167.8%, which works out to an average of
7.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1984: the 1970 dollar
lost 62.7% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1984 at the same ratio, 2.68: $1,000 becomes
$2,678, and $10,000 becomes $26,778.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1984
$1.00
$2.68
$5.00
$13.39
$10.00
$26.78
$20.00
$53.56
$50.00
$134
$100
$268
$500
$1,339
$1,000
$2,678
$5,000
$13,389
$10,000
$26,778
$100,000
$267,784
$1,000,000
$2,677,835
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1984
Between 1970 and 1984, energy rose the most, up 295.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 72.5%, against 167.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.29%
$268
Energy
10.32%
$396
Medical care
8.52%
$314
Housing
7.76%
$285
Transportation
7.54%
$277
Food
7.16%
$263
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.96%
$256
Apparel
3.97%
$172
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (5.97% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1984 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1970, at end
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$212
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$268
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $156 by
1977, on its way to $268 in 1984; 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 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $268; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1984: $100 is worth $268 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1984/