$100 in 1970 is worth $592 in 2012,
because prices increased 491.7% over that period, an average of
4.32% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$592
in 2012
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
491.7%
Average inflation rate
4.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$592
Price difference ($100 base)
$492
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 2012
229.594
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 2012
2.07%
$100 in 1970 → 2012
$592
$100 in 2012 → 1970
$16.90
What happened to prices between 1970 and 2012
Between 1970 and 2012, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 229.594.
Cumulatively, prices increased 491.7%, which works out to an average of
4.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.17 buys in 2012: the 1970 dollar
lost 83.1% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 2012 at the same ratio, 5.92: $1,000 becomes
$5,917, and $10,000 becomes $59,174.
Amount in 1970
Value in 2012
$1.00
$5.92
$5.00
$29.59
$10.00
$59.17
$20.00
$118
$50.00
$296
$100
$592
$500
$2,959
$1,000
$5,917
$5,000
$29,587
$10,000
$59,174
$100,000
$591,737
$1,000,000
$5,917,371
Inflation by spending category, 1970–2012
Between 1970 and 2012, medical care rose the most, up 1120.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 113.3%, against 491.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 2012, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.32%
$592
Medical care
6.14%
$1,220
Energy
5.55%
$965
Housing
4.41%
$612
Food
4.34%
$596
Transportation
4.27%
$580
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.20%
$563
Apparel
1.82%
$213
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 2012
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–2012 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$562
2010–2012
2.61%
5.3%
$592
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $337 by
1990, on its way to $592 in 2012; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2012
In 2012, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $592; the year's average CPI of 229.594 is the level
behind every 2012 figure on this page.
2012 put a number on what the Federal Reserve was aiming for. In January the
Fed announced a 2% inflation target, and consumer prices rose 2.1% for the
year, almost exactly on it. Gasoline averaged $3.62 a gallon, another annual
high, but the pace of increase cooled from 2011’s 3.2% as food and core prices
grew more slowly.
The bigger story was housing and jobs. Home prices began to recover, and the
median new home sold for about $245,200, up from $227,200 the year before.
Median household income was $51,017. The federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 45 cents.
In September the Fed started a third round of asset purchases, this one with
no fixed end date, aimed at lowering unemployment. Overseas, the European
Central Bank’s July pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro calmed
bond markets. A summer drought across the Midwest drove corn and soybean
prices to records, a shock that reached grocery shelves only partly, because
most of what shoppers pay for food covers processing and transport rather than
raw crops.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 2012: $100 is worth $592 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2012/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 2012. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2012/