$100 in 1970 is worth $372 in 1993,
because prices increased 272.4% over that period, an average of
5.88% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$372
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
272.4%
Average inflation rate
5.88% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$372
Price difference ($100 base)
$272
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1970 → 1993
$372
$100 in 1993 → 1970
$26.85
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1993
Between 1970 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 272.4%, which works out to an average of
5.88% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.27 buys in 1993: the 1970 dollar
lost 73.1% of its purchasing power over
these 23 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 1993 at the same ratio, 3.72: $1,000 becomes
$3,724, and $10,000 becomes $37,242.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1993
$1.00
$3.72
$5.00
$18.62
$10.00
$37.24
$20.00
$74.48
$50.00
$186
$100
$372
$500
$1,862
$1,000
$3,724
$5,000
$18,621
$10,000
$37,242
$100,000
$372,423
$1,000,000
$3,724,227
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1993
Between 1970 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 492.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 125.8%, against 272.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.88%
$372
Medical care
8.04%
$592
Energy
6.31%
$409
Housing
6.07%
$388
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.89%
$373
Food
5.72%
$359
Transportation
5.57%
$348
Apparel
3.61%
$226
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1993
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.40% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1993 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
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$372
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $234 by
1981, on its way to $372 in 1993; 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 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $372; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1993: $100 is worth $372 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1993/