$100 in 1972 is worth $513 in 2009,
because prices increased 413.2% over that period, an average of
4.52% a year.
$100 in 1972 has
the same buying power as
$513
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
413.2%
Average inflation rate
4.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$513
Price difference ($100 base)
$413
CPI in 1972
41.8
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1972 → 2009
$513
$100 in 2009 → 1972
$19.48
What happened to prices between 1972 and 2009
Between 1972 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 41.8 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 413.2%, which works out to an average of
4.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1972 bought what
$0.19 buys in 2009: the 1972 dollar
lost 80.5% of its purchasing power over
these 37 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 2009 at the same ratio, 5.13: $1,000 becomes
$5,132, and $10,000 becomes $51,325.
Amount in 1972
Value in 2009
$1.00
$5.13
$5.00
$25.66
$10.00
$51.32
$20.00
$103
$50.00
$257
$100
$513
$500
$2,566
$1,000
$5,132
$5,000
$25,662
$10,000
$51,325
$100,000
$513,246
$1,000,000
$5,132,464
Inflation by spending category, 1972–2009
Between 1972 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 907.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 92.7%, against 413.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1972
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1972 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.52%
$513
Medical care
6.44%
$1,007
Energy
5.44%
$710
Housing
4.72%
$551
Food
4.54%
$518
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.44%
$498
Transportation
4.14%
$449
Apparel
1.79%
$193
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1972: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1972 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.85% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1972–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$513
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1972
$100 from 1972 had already become $313 by
1990, on its way to $513 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 1972 had the buying
power of $513; 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 1972 to 2009: $100 is worth $513 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1972 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-2009/