$100 in 1972 is worth $297 in 1989,
because prices increased 196.7% over that period, an average of
6.61% a year.
$100 in 1972 has
the same buying power as
$297
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
196.7%
Average inflation rate
6.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$297
Price difference ($100 base)
$197
CPI in 1972
41.8
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1972 → 1989
$297
$100 in 1989 → 1972
$33.71
What happened to prices between 1972 and 1989
Between 1972 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 41.8 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 196.7%, which works out to an average of
6.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1972 bought what
$0.34 buys in 1989: the 1972 dollar
lost 66.3% of its purchasing power over
these 17 years.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
Every 1972 amount converts to 1989 at the same ratio, 2.97: $1,000 becomes
$2,967, and $10,000 becomes $29,665.
Amount in 1972
Value in 1989
$1.00
$2.97
$5.00
$14.83
$10.00
$29.67
$20.00
$59.33
$50.00
$148
$100
$297
$500
$1,483
$1,000
$2,967
$5,000
$14,833
$10,000
$29,665
$100,000
$296,651
$1,000,000
$2,966,507
Inflation by spending category, 1972–1989
Between 1972 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 300.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 90.4%, against 196.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1972
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1972 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.61%
$297
Medical care
8.50%
$400
Energy
7.59%
$347
Housing
6.93%
$312
Food
6.62%
$297
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.53%
$293
Transportation
6.38%
$286
Apparel
3.86%
$190
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1972: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1972 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.85% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (4.65% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1972–1989 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1972, at end
1972–1980
8.85%
97.1%
$197
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$297
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1972
$100 from 1972 had already become $197 by
1980, on its way to $297 in 1989; 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 1.9% in 1986.
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1972 had the buying
power of $297; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1972 to 1989: $100 is worth $297 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1972 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-1989/