$100 in 1971 is worth $555 in 2011,
because prices increased 455.4% over that period, an average of
4.38% a year.
$100 in 1971 has
the same buying power as
$555
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
455.4%
Average inflation rate
4.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$555
Price difference ($100 base)
$455
CPI in 1971
40.5
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1971 → 2011
$555
$100 in 2011 → 1971
$18.00
What happened to prices between 1971 and 2011
Between 1971 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 40.5 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 455.4%, which works out to an average of
4.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1971 bought what
$0.18 buys in 2011: the 1971 dollar
lost 82.0% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 2011 at the same ratio, 5.55: $1,000 becomes
$5,554, and $10,000 becomes $55,540.
Amount in 1971
Value in 2011
$1.00
$5.55
$5.00
$27.77
$10.00
$55.54
$20.00
$111
$50.00
$278
$100
$555
$500
$2,777
$1,000
$5,554
$5,000
$27,770
$10,000
$55,540
$100,000
$555,405
$1,000,000
$5,554,049
Inflation by spending category, 1971–2011
Between 1971 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 1008.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 99.9%, against 455.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1971
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1971 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.38%
$555
Medical care
6.20%
$1,109
Energy
5.71%
$920
Housing
4.48%
$577
Food
4.42%
$564
Transportation
4.29%
$538
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.24%
$527
Apparel
1.75%
$200
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1971: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1971 to 2011
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.21% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1971–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$538
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$555
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1971
$100 from 1971 had already become $336 by
1991, on its way to $555 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1971 had the buying
power of $555; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1971 to 2011: $100 is worth $555 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1971-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1971 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1971-to-2011/