$100 in 1970 is worth $414 in 1997,
because prices increased 313.7% over that period, an average of
5.40% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$414
in 1997
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
313.7%
Average inflation rate
5.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$414
Price difference ($100 base)
$314
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1997
160.5
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1997
2.29%
$100 in 1970 → 1997
$414
$100 in 1997 → 1970
$24.17
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1997
Between 1970 and 1997, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 160.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 313.7%, which works out to an average of
5.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1997: the 1970 dollar
lost 75.8% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 1997 at the same ratio, 4.14: $1,000 becomes
$4,137, and $10,000 becomes $41,366.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1997
$1.00
$4.14
$5.00
$20.68
$10.00
$41.37
$20.00
$82.73
$50.00
$207
$100
$414
$500
$2,068
$1,000
$4,137
$5,000
$20,683
$10,000
$41,366
$100,000
$413,660
$1,000,000
$4,136,598
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1997
Between 1970 and 1997, medical care rose the most, up 590.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 124.5%, against 313.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1997, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.40%
$414
Medical care
7.42%
$690
Energy
5.62%
$437
Housing
5.56%
$431
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.42%
$415
Food
5.28%
$401
Transportation
5.12%
$385
Apparel
3.04%
$224
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1997
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (2.98% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1997 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
1990–1997
2.98%
22.8%
$414
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $257 by
1983, on its way to $414 in 1997; 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 1997, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $414; the year's average CPI of 160.5 is the level
behind every 1997 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $37,000 in 1997, gas averaged $1.23 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $146,000. Inflation ran at 2.3% for the year, its lowest reading since the
mid-1980s, as a strong dollar and falling import prices helped keep costs in check at home even
as trouble built abroad. In July, Thailand devalued the baht, and the currency collapse that
followed spread within months to Indonesia, South Korea, and other Southeast Asian economies,
forcing IMF bailouts and years of recession across the region, though the crisis had little
immediate effect on U.S. prices. At home, Washington had a calmer year: in August, President
Clinton and Congress agreed on the Balanced Budget Act and the Taxpayer Relief Act, which cut
capital gains tax rates, created the Roth IRA, and set the federal budget on a path to its first
surplus in nearly three decades. In September, the federal minimum wage completed a two-step
rise to $5.15 an hour, where it would stay for a decade. Low inflation, a firming budget picture,
and a crisis unfolding an ocean away made 1997 a year the U.S. economy looked stronger than much
of the rest of the world’s.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1997: $100 is worth $414 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1997/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1997. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1997/