$100 in 1970 is worth $282 in 1986,
because prices increased 182.5% over that period, an average of
6.71% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$282
in 1986
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
182.5%
Average inflation rate
6.71% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$282
Price difference ($100 base)
$182
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1986
109.6
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1986
1.86%
$100 in 1970 → 1986
$282
$100 in 1986 → 1970
$35.40
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1986
Between 1970 and 1986, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 109.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 182.5%, which works out to an average of
6.71% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.35 buys in 1986: the 1970 dollar
lost 64.6% of its purchasing power over
these 16 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 1986 at the same ratio, 2.82: $1,000 becomes
$2,825, and $10,000 becomes $28,247.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1986
$1.00
$2.82
$5.00
$14.12
$10.00
$28.25
$20.00
$56.49
$50.00
$141
$100
$282
$500
$1,412
$1,000
$2,825
$5,000
$14,124
$10,000
$28,247
$100,000
$282,474
$1,000,000
$2,824,742
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1986
Between 1970 and 1986, medical care rose the most, up 258.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 78.9%, against 182.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1986, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.71%
$282
Medical care
8.31%
$359
Energy
8.06%
$346
Housing
7.21%
$305
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.60%
$278
Food
6.60%
$278
Transportation
6.47%
$273
Apparel
3.70%
$179
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1986
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (4.87% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1986 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1970, at end
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$212
1980–1986
4.87%
33.0%
$282
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $168 by
1978, on its way to $282 in 1986; 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 1.9% in 1986.
In 1986, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $282; the year's average CPI of 109.6 is the level
behind every 1986 figure on this page.
1986 delivered the decade’s biggest one-year drop in inflation, and it came
almost entirely from a single source: oil. Saudi Arabia abandoned its policy
of restraining output to prop up prices, and world crude collapsed from
about $27 a barrel to under $10 by midyear. Gasoline, which had averaged
$1.12 a gallon in 1985, fell to 86 cents. With energy costs plunging,
headline CPI inflation for the year came in at just 1.9%, the lowest annual
rate since 1965 and a striking bookend to 1980’s 13.5% peak. The relief was
uneven: prices for most goods and services outside energy kept rising at a
moderate pace, so households that didn’t drive much or heat with oil felt
less of the difference. In October, Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of
1986, a bipartisan overhaul that cut the top individual income tax rate from
50% to 28% while closing many deductions and shelters, the broadest rewrite
of the federal tax code since World War II. Between cheap gas and falling
interest rates, 1986 read like proof that the inflationary 1970s were a
closed chapter, six years after the U.S. economy had felt anything but
calm.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1986: $100 is worth $282 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1986/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1986. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1986/