$100 in 1970 is worth $456 in 2001,
because prices increased 356.4% over that period, an average of
5.02% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$456
in 2001
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
356.4%
Average inflation rate
5.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$456
Price difference ($100 base)
$356
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 2001
177.1
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 2001
2.85%
$100 in 1970 → 2001
$456
$100 in 2001 → 1970
$21.91
What happened to prices between 1970 and 2001
Between 1970 and 2001, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 177.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 356.4%, which works out to an average of
5.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.22 buys in 2001: the 1970 dollar
lost 78.1% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 2001 at the same ratio, 4.56: $1,000 becomes
$4,564, and $10,000 becomes $45,644.
Amount in 1970
Value in 2001
$1.00
$4.56
$5.00
$22.82
$10.00
$45.64
$20.00
$91.29
$50.00
$228
$100
$456
$500
$2,282
$1,000
$4,564
$5,000
$22,822
$10,000
$45,644
$100,000
$456,443
$1,000,000
$4,564,433
Inflation by spending category, 1970–2001
Between 1970 and 2001, medical care rose the most, up 702.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 115.0%, against 356.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 2001, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.02%
$456
Medical care
6.95%
$802
Energy
5.38%
$507
Housing
5.22%
$485
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.02%
$456
Food
4.91%
$442
Transportation
4.67%
$411
Apparel
2.50%
$215
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 2001
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 1970–2001 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
2000–2001
2.85%
2.8%
$456
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $282 by
1986, on its way to $456 in 2001; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2001
In 2001, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $456; the year's average CPI of 177.1 is the level
behind every 2001 figure on this page.
Inflation fell to 2.8% in 2001 from 3.4% the year before, as a recession that began in March
cut demand and gasoline slid to an average of $1.46 a gallon. The median household earned about
$42,200, roughly flat from 2000, and a new home cost about $175,200. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate 11 times over the year, from 6.5% to 1.75%, the lowest since 1961. After the
September 11 attacks, U.S. stock markets closed for four trading days, and air travel dropped
sharply until the following year. Congress had already passed a $1.35 trillion tax cut in June,
which included rebate checks of up to $600. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the
recession’s end at November, but unemployment kept rising into 2003. A first-class stamp went to
34 cents in January, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15. The Fed’s cuts were the
first step in a long period of very cheap borrowing that would fuel the housing boom.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 2001: $100 is worth $456 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2001/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 2001. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2001/