$100 in 1970 is worth $404 in 1996,
because prices increased 304.4% over that period, an average of
5.52% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$404
in 1996
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
304.4%
Average inflation rate
5.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$404
Price difference ($100 base)
$304
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1996
156.9
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1996
2.95%
$100 in 1970 → 1996
$404
$100 in 1996 → 1970
$24.73
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1996
Between 1970 and 1996, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 156.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 304.4%, which works out to an average of
5.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.25 buys in 1996: the 1970 dollar
lost 75.3% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1996 at the same ratio, 4.04: $1,000 becomes
$4,044, and $10,000 becomes $40,438.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1996
$1.00
$4.04
$5.00
$20.22
$10.00
$40.44
$20.00
$80.88
$50.00
$202
$100
$404
$500
$2,022
$1,000
$4,044
$5,000
$20,219
$10,000
$40,438
$100,000
$404,381
$1,000,000
$4,043,814
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1996
Between 1970 and 1996, medical care rose the most, up 571.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 122.5%, against 304.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1996, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.52%
$404
Medical care
7.60%
$671
Energy
5.79%
$432
Housing
5.67%
$420
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.54%
$406
Food
5.39%
$391
Transportation
5.28%
$381
Apparel
3.12%
$222
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1996
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.09% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1996 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
1990–1996
3.09%
20.0%
$404
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $257 by
1983, on its way to $404 in 1996; 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 1996, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $404; the year's average CPI of 156.9 is the level
behind every 1996 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $35,500 in 1996, gas averaged $1.23 a gallon, up noticeably
from the mid-decade lull, and a new home cost roughly $140,000. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the
year, ticking back up from 1995 as energy prices firmed. Washington passed two of the decade’s
more consequential laws that year: in February, the Telecommunications Act rewrote the rules for
phone, cable, and broadcast media for the first time since 1934, opening local markets to
competition and easing ownership limits; in August, a welfare overhaul ended the federal
guarantee of cash assistance, replacing it with block grants to states and time limits on
benefits. In October, the federal minimum wage rose to $4.75 an hour, its first increase in five
years and the opening step of a two-part law that would take it to $5.15 the following
September. Two sweeping new laws and a minimum wage finally on the move again made 1996 a year
that changed more about how the economy was governed than about how fast prices moved.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1996: $100 is worth $404 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1996/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1996. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1996/