$100 in 1970 is worth $382 in 1994,
because prices increased 282.0% over that period, an average of
5.74% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$382
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
282.0%
Average inflation rate
5.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$382
Price difference ($100 base)
$282
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1970 → 1994
$382
$100 in 1994 → 1970
$26.18
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1994
Between 1970 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 282.0%, which works out to an average of
5.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.26 buys in 1994: the 1970 dollar
lost 73.8% of its purchasing power over
these 24 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 1994 at the same ratio, 3.82: $1,000 becomes
$3,820, and $10,000 becomes $38,196.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1994
$1.00
$3.82
$5.00
$19.10
$10.00
$38.20
$20.00
$76.39
$50.00
$191
$100
$382
$500
$1,910
$1,000
$3,820
$5,000
$19,098
$10,000
$38,196
$100,000
$381,959
$1,000,000
$3,819,588
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1994
Between 1970 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 520.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 125.3%, against 282.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.74%
$382
Medical care
7.90%
$621
Energy
6.06%
$410
Housing
5.92%
$398
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.76%
$384
Food
5.58%
$368
Transportation
5.46%
$358
Apparel
3.44%
$225
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1994
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.19% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1994 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
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$382
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $249 by
1982, on its way to $382 in 1994; 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 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $382; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1994: $100 is worth $382 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1994/