$100 in 1970 is worth $393 in 1995,
because prices increased 292.8% over that period, an average of
5.62% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$393
in 1995
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
292.8%
Average inflation rate
5.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$393
Price difference ($100 base)
$293
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1995
152.4
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1995
2.83%
$100 in 1970 → 1995
$393
$100 in 1995 → 1970
$25.46
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1995
Between 1970 and 1995, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 152.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 292.8%, which works out to an average of
5.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.25 buys in 1995: the 1970 dollar
lost 74.5% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1995 at the same ratio, 3.93: $1,000 becomes
$3,928, and $10,000 becomes $39,278.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1995
$1.00
$3.93
$5.00
$19.64
$10.00
$39.28
$20.00
$78.56
$50.00
$196
$100
$393
$500
$1,964
$1,000
$3,928
$5,000
$19,639
$10,000
$39,278
$100,000
$392,784
$1,000,000
$3,927,835
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1995
Between 1970 and 1995, medical care rose the most, up 548.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 123.0%, against 292.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1995, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.62%
$393
Medical care
7.76%
$649
Energy
5.83%
$413
Housing
5.79%
$408
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.65%
$395
Food
5.47%
$379
Transportation
5.38%
$371
Apparel
3.26%
$223
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1995
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1995 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
1990–1995
3.12%
16.6%
$393
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $249 by
1982, on its way to $393 in 1995; 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 1995, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $393; the year's average CPI of 152.4 is the level
behind every 1995 figure on this page.
In 1995, gas averaged $1.15 a gallon, a new home cost roughly $133,900, and the median household
earned about $34,100. Inflation ran at 2.8% for the year, little changed from 1994, as the
Federal Reserve shifted from raising rates to cutting them. Having lifted its policy rate six
times the year before, the Fed judged by July that the economy had cooled enough on its own, and
trimmed rates instead, an outcome economists would later point to as a rare soft landing. The
year opened with a currency crisis: Mexico’s peso lost roughly half its value against the dollar
in a matter of weeks, and the U.S. Treasury and the IMF assembled a $50 billion rescue package,
controversial in Congress, to stabilize it and keep the crisis from spreading to other emerging
markets. Closer to home, a budget standoff between President Clinton and the Republican Congress
shut down federal agencies twice, first for five days in November and then for 21 days spanning
December into January 1996, the longest shutdown up to that point. The Postal Service raised the
cost of a first-class stamp to 32 cents in January. Low, steady inflation was about the only calm
part of 1995’s economic story.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1995: $100 is worth $393 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1995/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1995. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1995/