$100 in 1971 is worth $530 in 2009,
because prices increased 429.7% over that period, an average of
4.48% a year.
$100 in 1971 has
the same buying power as
$530
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
429.7%
Average inflation rate
4.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$530
Price difference ($100 base)
$430
CPI in 1971
40.5
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1971 → 2009
$530
$100 in 2009 → 1971
$18.88
What happened to prices between 1971 and 2009
Between 1971 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 40.5 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 429.7%, which works out to an average of
4.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1971 bought what
$0.19 buys in 2009: the 1971 dollar
lost 81.1% of its purchasing power over
these 38 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 2009 at the same ratio, 5.30: $1,000 becomes
$5,297, and $10,000 becomes $52,972.
Amount in 1971
Value in 2009
$1.00
$5.30
$5.00
$26.49
$10.00
$52.97
$20.00
$106
$50.00
$265
$100
$530
$500
$2,649
$1,000
$5,297
$5,000
$26,486
$10,000
$52,972
$100,000
$529,721
$1,000,000
$5,297,210
Inflation by spending category, 1971–2009
Between 1971 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 940.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 96.5%, against 429.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1971
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1971 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.48%
$530
Medical care
6.36%
$1,040
Energy
5.37%
$729
Housing
4.69%
$571
Food
4.54%
$539
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.40%
$513
Transportation
4.06%
$454
Apparel
1.79%
$197
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1971: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1971 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.21% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1971–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$530
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1971
$100 from 1971 had already become $306 by
1989, on its way to $530 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1971 had the buying
power of $530; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1971 to 2009: $100 is worth $530 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1971-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1971 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1971-to-2009/