$100 in 1971 is worth $466 in 2004,
because prices increased 366.4% over that period, an average of
4.78% a year.
$100 in 1971 has
the same buying power as
$466
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
366.4%
Average inflation rate
4.78% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$466
Price difference ($100 base)
$366
CPI in 1971
40.5
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1971 → 2004
$466
$100 in 2004 → 1971
$21.44
What happened to prices between 1971 and 2004
Between 1971 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 40.5 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 366.4%, which works out to an average of
4.78% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1971 bought what
$0.21 buys in 2004: the 1971 dollar
lost 78.6% of its purchasing power over
these 33 years.
Consumer prices rose 4.4% in 1971, down from 1970’s 5.7% as
the recession that started in December 1969 finally cooled demand. The bigger
economic story came that August 15, when President Nixon closed the “gold
window” that let foreign governments exchange dollars for gold, ending the
Bretton Woods system that had anchored the dollar since World War II. The
same address announced a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, the first
peacetime controls the country had seen, an attempt to break inflationary
expectations without the slower grind of tighter money. The “Nixon Shock,” as
it came to be known, let the dollar float against other currencies for the
first time and set the stage for a wage-and-price-control regime that would
run in various forms into 1973. Politically, the country lowered its voting
age that year: the 26th Amendment, ratified July 1, extended the vote to
18-year-olds, capping a campaign built on the argument that men old enough to
be drafted to Vietnam were old enough to vote for the people who sent them.
The Postal Service, independent since 1970’s reorganization, raised
first-class postage from 6 to 8 cents that May. A median household earned
$9,028 in 1971, up from $8,734 the year before, while gas held near 36 cents
a gallon and a new home sold for a median $25,200. Consumer prices stood
309.1% above their 1913 level by year’s end, still years away
from the double-digit inflation the controls were meant to prevent.
Every 1971 amount converts to 2004 at the same ratio, 4.66: $1,000 becomes
$4,664, and $10,000 becomes $46,642.
Amount in 1971
Value in 2004
$1.00
$4.66
$5.00
$23.32
$10.00
$46.64
$20.00
$93.28
$50.00
$233
$100
$466
$500
$2,332
$1,000
$4,664
$5,000
$23,321
$10,000
$46,642
$100,000
$466,420
$1,000,000
$4,664,198
Inflation by spending category, 1971–2004
Between 1971 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 759.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 97.1%, against 366.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1971
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1971 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.78%
$466
Medical care
6.73%
$859
Energy
5.42%
$571
Housing
4.99%
$499
Food
4.74%
$461
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.74%
$460
Transportation
4.39%
$413
Apparel
2.08%
$197
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1971: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1971 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.21% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1971–2004 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1971, at end
1971–1980
8.21%
103.5%
$203
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$323
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$425
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$466
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1971
$100 from 1971 had already become $280 by
1987, on its way to $466 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1971 had the buying
power of $466; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1971 to 2004: $100 is worth $466 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1971-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1971 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1971-to-2004/