$100 in 1970 is worth $659 in 2019,
because prices increased 558.9% over that period, an average of
3.92% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$659
in 2019
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
558.9%
Average inflation rate
3.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$659
Price difference ($100 base)
$559
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 2019
255.657
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 2019
1.81%
$100 in 1970 → 2019
$659
$100 in 2019 → 1970
$15.18
What happened to prices between 1970 and 2019
Between 1970 and 2019, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 255.657.
Cumulatively, prices increased 558.9%, which works out to an average of
3.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2019: the 1970 dollar
lost 84.8% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 2019 at the same ratio, 6.59: $1,000 becomes
$6,589, and $10,000 becomes $65,891.
Amount in 1970
Value in 2019
$1.00
$6.59
$5.00
$32.95
$10.00
$65.89
$20.00
$132
$50.00
$329
$100
$659
$500
$3,295
$1,000
$6,589
$5,000
$32,945
$10,000
$65,891
$100,000
$658,910
$1,000,000
$6,589,098
Inflation by spending category, 1970–2019
Between 1970 and 2019, medical care rose the most, up 1365.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 109.5%, against 558.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 2019, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.92%
$659
Medical care
5.63%
$1,466
Energy
4.45%
$844
Housing
4.14%
$731
Food
3.92%
$659
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.88%
$645
Transportation
3.58%
$560
Apparel
1.52%
$210
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 2019
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.78% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–2019 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
2010–2019
1.78%
17.2%
$659
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $382 by
1994, on its way to $659 in 2019; 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: 2019
In 2019, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $659; the year's average CPI of 255.657 is the level
behind every 2019 figure on this page.
2019 was the last ordinary year before COVID-19. Consumer prices rose 1.8%,
slightly under the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, with gasoline averaging
$2.60 a gallon. Median household income jumped to $68,703, the highest on
record up to that point, and the median new home sold for about $328,000. A
first-class stamp rose to 55 cents.
The Fed reversed course. After four increases in 2018, it cut rates three
times, to 1.50–1.75%, citing slower global growth, trade tensions, and low
inflation. In July the expansion that began in June 2009 became the longest in
U.S. records, and in August the yield curve briefly inverted, a signal
investors read as a recession warning.
For workers at the bottom of the pay scale, 2019 marked a milestone of a
different kind. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and reached its tenth
year without an increase, the longest gap since the wage was first set. Because
prices had climbed about 19% since it was last raised in 2009, its buying power
was lower than at any point in that span.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 2019: $100 is worth $659 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2019/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 2019. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2019/