$100 in 1970 is worth $320 in 1989,
because prices increased 219.6% over that period, an average of
6.31% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$320
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
219.6%
Average inflation rate
6.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$320
Price difference ($100 base)
$220
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1970 → 1989
$320
$100 in 1989 → 1970
$31.29
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1989
Between 1970 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 219.6%, which works out to an average of
6.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.31 buys in 1989: the 1970 dollar
lost 68.7% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1989 at the same ratio, 3.20: $1,000 becomes
$3,196, and $10,000 becomes $31,959.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1989
$1.00
$3.20
$5.00
$15.98
$10.00
$31.96
$20.00
$63.92
$50.00
$160
$100
$320
$500
$1,598
$1,000
$3,196
$5,000
$15,979
$10,000
$31,959
$100,000
$319,588
$1,000,000
$3,195,876
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1989
Between 1970 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 339.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 100.3%, against 219.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.31%
$320
Medical care
8.10%
$439
Energy
7.13%
$370
Housing
6.62%
$338
Food
6.30%
$319
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.25%
$316
Transportation
6.03%
$304
Apparel
3.72%
$200
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (4.65% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1989 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1970, at end
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$212
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$320
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $187 by
1979, on its way to $320 in 1989; 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 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $320; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1989: $100 is worth $320 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1989/