$100 in 1970 is worth $444 in 2000,
because prices increased 343.8% over that period, an average of
5.09% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$444
in 2000
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
343.8%
Average inflation rate
5.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$444
Price difference ($100 base)
$344
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 2000
172.2
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 2000
3.36%
$100 in 1970 → 2000
$444
$100 in 2000 → 1970
$22.53
What happened to prices between 1970 and 2000
Between 1970 and 2000, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 172.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 343.8%, which works out to an average of
5.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.23 buys in 2000: the 1970 dollar
lost 77.5% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 2000 at the same ratio, 4.44: $1,000 becomes
$4,438, and $10,000 becomes $44,381.
Amount in 1970
Value in 2000
$1.00
$4.44
$5.00
$22.19
$10.00
$44.38
$20.00
$88.76
$50.00
$222
$100
$444
$500
$2,219
$1,000
$4,438
$5,000
$22,191
$10,000
$44,381
$100,000
$443,814
$1,000,000
$4,438,144
Inflation by spending category, 1970–2000
Between 1970 and 2000, medical care rose the most, up 667.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 118.9%, against 343.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 2000, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.09%
$444
Medical care
7.03%
$767
Energy
5.43%
$489
Housing
5.26%
$466
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.10%
$444
Food
4.97%
$428
Transportation
4.81%
$409
Apparel
2.65%
$219
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 2000
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 1970–2000 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$444
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $277 by
1985, on its way to $444 in 2000; 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 2000, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $444; the year's average CPI of 172.2 is the level
behind every 2000 figure on this page.
Inflation ran at 3.4% in 2000, the highest annual rate since 1991, as an economy growing
above 4% and a rise in oil prices pushed the CPI up. The median household earned about
$42,100, gas averaged $1.51 a gallon, and a new home cost roughly $169,000. The Federal
Reserve had raised interest rates six times since mid-1999 and stopped at 6.5% in May. By
then the stock market had already turned: the Nasdaq hit its record of 5,048 on March 10 and
lost about 39% of its value by December. Consumer prices did not reflect the slowdown yet,
which is why the Fed held rates high through the year even as technology companies began to
fail. In October, Congress granted China permanent normal trade relations, a decision that
would help hold down the price of manufactured goods for years. A first-class stamp cost 33
cents and the federal minimum wage was $5.15. The recession of 2001 brought inflation back
down.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 2000: $100 is worth $444 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2000/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 2000. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2000/