$100 in 1970 is worth $785 in 2023,
because prices increased 685.3% over that period, an average of
3.97% a year.
$100 in 1970 has
the same buying power as
$785
in 2023
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
685.3%
Average inflation rate
3.97% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$785
Price difference ($100 base)
$685
CPI in 1970
38.8
CPI in 2023
304.702
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
Inflation in 2023
4.12%
$100 in 1970 → 2023
$785
$100 in 2023 → 1970
$12.73
What happened to prices between 1970 and 2023
Between 1970 and 2023, the Consumer Price Index went from 38.8 to 304.702.
Cumulatively, prices increased 685.3%, which works out to an average of
3.97% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1970 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2023: the 1970 dollar
lost 87.3% of its purchasing power over
these 53 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 2023 at the same ratio, 7.85: $1,000 becomes
$7,853, and $10,000 becomes $78,531.
Amount in 1970
Value in 2023
$1.00
$7.85
$5.00
$39.27
$10.00
$78.53
$20.00
$157
$50.00
$393
$100
$785
$500
$3,927
$1,000
$7,853
$5,000
$39,266
$10,000
$78,531
$100,000
$785,314
$1,000,000
$7,853,144
Inflation by spending category, 1970–2023
Between 1970 and 2023, medical care rose the most, up 1515.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 120.6%, against 685.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1970
spending costs in 2023, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1970 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.97%
$785
Medical care
5.39%
$1,615
Energy
4.65%
$1,111
Housing
4.19%
$880
Food
4.06%
$824
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.89%
$756
Transportation
3.77%
$712
Apparel
1.50%
$221
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1970: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1970 to 2023
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1970–2023 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$667
2020–2023
5.59%
17.7%
$785
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1970
$100 from 1970 had already become $404 by
1996, on its way to $785 in 2023; 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: 2023
In 2023, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1970 had the buying
power of $785; the year's average CPI of 304.702 is the level
behind every 2023 figure on this page.
2023 was the year inflation came down without a recession. Consumer prices
rose 4.1% on average, roughly half of 2022’s 8.0%, and the December-to-December
rate fell to 3.4%. Gasoline averaged $3.52 a gallon, well below the 2022
average, and supply-chain pressure on goods eased. Shelter, restaurant meals,
and other services stayed expensive, so the CPI kept rising at a rate well
above the pre-pandemic pace.
The Federal Reserve completed its rate-hiking campaign in July, taking the
policy rate to 5.25–5.50%, the highest level in 22 years. The effects showed
up in banking: Silicon Valley Bank failed in March after rate increases eroded
the value of its bond portfolio, the second-largest bank failure in U.S.
history at the time. Despite that, unemployment stayed under 4% all year.
Median household income was $80,610 according to the Census Bureau. The
federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp rose to 66 cents
in July.
MLA: “Inflation from 1970 to 2023: $100 is worth $785 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2023/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1970 to 2023. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1970-to-2023/