$100 in 1970 is worth $632 in 2017,
because prices increased 531.8% over that period, an average of
4.00% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$632
in 2017
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
531.8%
Average inflation rate
4.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$632
Price difference ($100 base)
$532
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 2017
245.12
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 2017
2.13%
$100 in 1970 → 2017
$632
$100 in 2017 → 1970
$15.83
What happened to prices between 1970 and 2017
Between 1970 and 2017, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 245.12.
Cumulatively, prices increased 531.8%, which works out to an average of
4.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.16 buys in 2017: the 1970 dollar
lost 84.2% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 2017 at the same ratio, 6.32: $1,000 becomes
$6,318, and $10,000 becomes $63,175.
Amount in 1970
Value in 2017
$1.00
$6.32
$5.00
$31.59
$10.00
$63.18
$20.00
$126
$50.00
$316
$100
$632
$500
$3,159
$1,000
$6,318
$5,000
$31,588
$10,000
$63,175
$100,000
$631,753
$1,000,000
$6,317,526
Inflation by spending category, 1970–2017
Between 1970 and 2017, medical care rose the most, up 1298.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 112.2%, against 531.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 2017, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.00%
$632
Medical care
5.77%
$1,398
Energy
4.53%
$802
Housing
4.20%
$690
Food
4.02%
$638
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.95%
$618
Transportation
3.64%
$538
Apparel
1.61%
$212
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 2017
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.69% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–2017 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
2010–2017
1.69%
12.4%
$632
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $382 by
1994, on its way to $632 in 2017; 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: 2017
In 2017, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $632; the year's average CPI of 245.12 is the level
behind every 2017 figure on this page.
2017 pushed consumer prices back above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The
CPI rose 2.1%, the first reading over 2% in five years, helped by a rebound
in energy after OPEC’s output cuts and by a storm-related spike at the pump:
Hurricane Harvey shut a large part of Gulf Coast refining in late August.
Gasoline averaged $2.42 a gallon, up from $2.14 in 2016.
Household incomes kept rising. The median household income reached $61,372,
and the median new home sold for about $322,100. The federal minimum wage
stayed at $7.25, its eighth year at that level, and a first-class stamp rose
to 49 cents.
The Fed raised rates three times, to 1.25–1.50%, and in October began
letting its bond holdings shrink. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
in December, lowering the corporate rate to 21%. Even with unemployment near
4%, core inflation stayed under 2%, a puzzle that shaped Fed debates for the
next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 2017: $100 is worth $632 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2017/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 2017. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2017/