$100 in 1970 is worth $277 in 1985,
because prices increased 177.3% over that period, an average of
7.04% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$277
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
177.3%
Average inflation rate
7.04% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$277
Price difference ($100 base)
$177
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1970 → 1985
$277
$100 in 1985 → 1970
$36.06
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1985
Between 1970 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 177.3%, which works out to an average of
7.04% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.36 buys in 1985: the 1970 dollar
lost 63.9% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1985 at the same ratio, 2.77: $1,000 becomes
$2,773, and $10,000 becomes $27,732.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1985
$1.00
$2.77
$5.00
$13.87
$10.00
$27.73
$20.00
$55.46
$50.00
$139
$100
$277
$500
$1,387
$1,000
$2,773
$5,000
$13,866
$10,000
$27,732
$100,000
$277,320
$1,000,000
$2,773,196
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1985
Between 1970 and 1985, energy rose the most, up 298.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 77.4%, against 177.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.04%
$277
Energy
9.65%
$398
Medical care
8.37%
$334
Housing
7.50%
$296
Transportation
7.20%
$284
Food
6.83%
$269
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.78%
$267
Apparel
3.89%
$177
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1985
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (5.48% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1985 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1970, at end
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$212
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$277
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $156 by
1977, on its way to $277 in 1985; 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 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $277; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1985: $100 is worth $277 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1985/