$100 in 1970 is worth $351 in 1991,
because prices increased 251.0% over that period, an average of
6.16% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$351
in 1991
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
251.0%
Average inflation rate
6.16% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$351
Price difference ($100 base)
$251
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1991
136.2
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1991
4.21%
$100 in 1970 → 1991
$351
$100 in 1991 → 1970
$28.49
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1991
Between 1970 and 1991, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 136.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 251.0%, which works out to an average of
6.16% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.28 buys in 1991: the 1970 dollar
lost 71.5% of its purchasing power over
these 21 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 1991 at the same ratio, 3.51: $1,000 becomes
$3,510, and $10,000 becomes $35,103.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1991
$1.00
$3.51
$5.00
$17.55
$10.00
$35.10
$20.00
$70.21
$50.00
$176
$100
$351
$500
$1,755
$1,000
$3,510
$5,000
$17,552
$10,000
$35,103
$100,000
$351,031
$1,000,000
$3,510,309
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1991
Between 1970 and 1991, medical care rose the most, up 420.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 117.4%, against 251.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1991, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.16%
$351
Medical care
8.17%
$521
Energy
6.85%
$402
Housing
6.39%
$367
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.12%
$348
Food
6.11%
$348
Transportation
5.85%
$330
Apparel
3.77%
$217
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1991
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (4.21% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1991 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1970, at end
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$212
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$337
1990–1991
4.21%
4.2%
$351
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $212 by
1980, on its way to $351 in 1991; 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 1991, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $351; the year's average CPI of 136.2 is the level
behind every 1991 figure on this page.
1991 opened in recession and closed in a slow, uneven recovery. The median household earned
about $30,100 for the year, gas averaged $1.14 a gallon, and a new home cost roughly $120,000.
Inflation ran at 4.2% for the year, down from 1990’s oil-driven spike, as the Gulf War ended in
February and crude oil retreated from its autumn highs. The recession itself, dated by the
National Bureau of Economic Research from July 1990 to March 1991, was technically over by
spring, but hiring stayed weak well into 1992, the stretch economists came to call the jobless
recovery. The Federal Reserve kept cutting interest rates through the year to support growth,
reversing the tightening campaign it had run through the late 1980s. In April the federal
minimum wage rose to $4.25 an hour, the second step of an increase from the $3.35 rate that had
held since 1981. The Postal Service had already raised the cost of a first-class stamp to 29
cents that February. It was the first full year of the decade without an oil shock driving
prices, even if the job market took longer to follow.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1991: $100 is worth $351 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1991/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1991. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1991/