$100 in 1970 is worth $429 in 1999,
because prices increased 329.4% over that period, an average of
5.15% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$429
in 1999
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
329.4%
Average inflation rate
5.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$429
Price difference ($100 base)
$329
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 1999
166.6
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 1999
2.21%
$100 in 1970 → 1999
$429
$100 in 1999 → 1970
$23.29
What happened to prices between 1970 and 1999
Between 1970 and 1999, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 166.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 329.4%, which works out to an average of
5.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.23 buys in 1999: the 1970 dollar
lost 76.7% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 1999 at the same ratio, 4.29: $1,000 becomes
$4,294, and $10,000 becomes $42,938.
Amount in 1970
Value in 1999
$1.00
$4.29
$5.00
$21.47
$10.00
$42.94
$20.00
$85.88
$50.00
$215
$100
$429
$500
$2,147
$1,000
$4,294
$5,000
$21,469
$10,000
$42,938
$100,000
$429,381
$1,000,000
$4,293,814
Inflation by spending category, 1970–1999
Between 1970 and 1999, medical care rose the most, up 637.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 121.8%, against 329.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 1999, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.15%
$429
Medical care
7.13%
$737
Housing
5.33%
$450
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.19%
$434
Food
5.06%
$419
Energy
5.06%
$418
Transportation
4.76%
$385
Apparel
2.78%
$222
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 1999
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (2.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–1999 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
1990–1999
2.73%
27.5%
$429
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $268 by
1984, on its way to $429 in 1999; 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 1999, prices rose 2.2% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $429; the year's average CPI of 166.6 is the level
behind every 1999 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $40,700 in 1999, gas averaged $1.17 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $161,000. Inflation ran at 2.2% for the year, ticking back up from 1998’s decade low
as oil prices recovered from their collapse. The decade closed with two changes to the financial
system that would shape the one after it: on January 1, the euro launched as an accounting
currency across 11 European countries, trading alongside national currencies like the French
franc and German mark ahead of physical cash in 2002, and in November, Congress passed the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, tearing down the Depression-era wall between commercial banks, investment
banks, and insurers. Stock markets, meanwhile, were absorbed in a boom of their own: the Nasdaq
surged through the year on soaring internet-stock valuations, and the Federal Reserve raised
interest rates three times in the second half of 1999 partly to cool the exuberance, even as it
pumped extra liquidity into the banking system to guard against any disruption from the Y2K
rollover. A first-class stamp cost 33 cents. Inflation had spent the decade falling from 1990’s
5.4% peak to averages closer to 2-3%, and 1999 closed it out almost exactly where the 1990s as a
whole had settled.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 1999: $100 is worth $429 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1999/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 1999. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-1999/