$100 in 1972 is worth $452 in 2004,
because prices increased 351.9% over that period, an average of
4.83% a year.
$100 in 1972 has
the same buying power as
$452
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
351.9%
Average inflation rate
4.83% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$452
Price difference ($100 base)
$352
CPI in 1972
41.8
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1972 → 2004
$452
$100 in 2004 → 1972
$22.13
What happened to prices between 1972 and 2004
Between 1972 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 41.8 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 351.9%, which works out to an average of
4.83% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1972 bought what
$0.22 buys in 2004: the 1972 dollar
lost 77.9% of its purchasing power over
these 32 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 2004 at the same ratio, 4.52: $1,000 becomes
$4,519, and $10,000 becomes $45,191.
Amount in 1972
Value in 2004
$1.00
$4.52
$5.00
$22.60
$10.00
$45.19
$20.00
$90.38
$50.00
$226
$100
$452
$500
$2,260
$1,000
$4,519
$5,000
$22,596
$10,000
$45,191
$100,000
$451,914
$1,000,000
$4,519,139
Inflation by spending category, 1972–2004
Between 1972 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 731.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 93.3%, against 351.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1972
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1972 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.83%
$452
Medical care
6.84%
$831
Energy
5.51%
$557
Housing
5.03%
$481
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.79%
$447
Food
4.76%
$442
Transportation
4.50%
$409
Apparel
2.08%
$193
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1972: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1972 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.85% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1972–2004 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1972, at end
1972–1980
8.85%
97.1%
$197
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$313
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$412
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$452
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1972
$100 from 1972 had already become $283 by
1988, on its way to $452 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 1972 had the buying
power of $452; 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 1972 to 2004: $100 is worth $452 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1972 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-2004/