$100 in 1972 is worth $538 in 2011,
because prices increased 438.1% over that period, an average of
4.41% a year.
$100 in 1972 has
the same buying power as
$538
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
438.1%
Average inflation rate
4.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$538
Price difference ($100 base)
$438
CPI in 1972
41.8
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1972 → 2011
$538
$100 in 2011 → 1972
$18.58
What happened to prices between 1972 and 2011
Between 1972 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 41.8 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 438.1%, which works out to an average of
4.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1972 bought what
$0.19 buys in 2011: the 1972 dollar
lost 81.4% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 2011 at the same ratio, 5.38: $1,000 becomes
$5,381, and $10,000 becomes $53,813.
Amount in 1972
Value in 2011
$1.00
$5.38
$5.00
$26.91
$10.00
$53.81
$20.00
$108
$50.00
$269
$100
$538
$500
$2,691
$1,000
$5,381
$5,000
$26,907
$10,000
$53,813
$100,000
$538,132
$1,000,000
$5,381,316
Inflation by spending category, 1972–2011
Between 1972 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 973.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 96.0%, against 438.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1972
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1972 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.41%
$538
Medical care
6.27%
$1,073
Energy
5.79%
$897
Housing
4.50%
$556
Food
4.42%
$541
Transportation
4.38%
$532
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.27%
$511
Apparel
1.74%
$196
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1972: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1972 to 2011
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.85% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1972–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$522
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$538
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1972
$100 from 1972 had already become $336 by
1992, on its way to $538 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 1972 had the buying
power of $538; 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 1972 to 2011: $100 is worth $538 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1972 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-2011/