$100 in 1970 is worth $420 in 1998,
because prices increased 320.1% over that period, an average of
5.26% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$420
in 1998
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
320.1%
Average inflation rate
5.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$420
Price difference ($100 base)
$320
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1998
163
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1998
1.56%
$100 in 1970 → 1998
$420
$100 in 1998 → 1970
$23.80
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1998
Between 1970 and 1998, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 163.
Cumulatively, prices increased 320.1%, which works out to an average of
5.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1998: the 1970 dollar
lost 76.2% of its purchasing power over
these 28 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 1998 at the same ratio, 4.20: $1,000 becomes
$4,201, and $10,000 becomes $42,010.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1998
$1.00
$4.20
$5.00
$21.01
$10.00
$42.01
$20.00
$84.02
$50.00
$210
$100
$420
$500
$2,101
$1,000
$4,201
$5,000
$21,005
$10,000
$42,010
$100,000
$420,103
$1,000,000
$4,201,031
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1998
Between 1970 and 1998, medical care rose the most, up 612.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 124.7%, against 320.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1998, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.26%
$420
Medical care
7.26%
$712
Housing
5.44%
$441
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.30%
$425
Food
5.17%
$410
Energy
5.11%
$404
Transportation
4.86%
$378
Apparel
2.93%
$225
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1998
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (2.80% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1998 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
1990–1998
2.80%
24.7%
$420
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $268 by
1984, on its way to $420 in 1998; 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 1.6% in 1998.
In 1998, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $420; the year's average CPI of 163 is the level
behind every 1998 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $38,900 in 1998, gas averaged just $1.06 a gallon, its
cheapest of the decade, and a new home cost roughly $152,500. Inflation ran at 1.6% for the
year, the lowest of the 1990s, as a glut of crude oil, worsened by weak demand from Asia’s
slowdown, pushed prices below $11 a barrel by December and pulled pump prices down with them.
The calm at home came alongside real turmoil abroad: in August, Russia devalued the ruble and
defaulted on its domestic debt, rattling markets already unsettled by the Asian financial
crisis, and in September the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management collapsed after its highly
leveraged bets went bad, prompting the Federal Reserve to organize a private-sector bailout by
more than a dozen banks to prevent a disorderly unwinding of its roughly $100 billion in
positions. The Fed also cut interest rates three times that fall, in September, October, and
November, an insurance policy against the global financial turmoil spreading to the U.S.
economy. Cheap oil and a well-timed set of rate cuts left 1998 as a year the U.S. economy
absorbed two foreign financial crises without much of a dent at home.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1998: $100 is worth $420 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1998/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1998. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1998/