$100 in 1972 is worth $648 in 2021,
because prices increased 548.3% over that period, an average of
3.89% a year.
$100 in 1972 has
the same buying power as
$648
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
548.3%
Average inflation rate
3.89% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$648
Price difference ($100 base)
$548
CPI in 1972
41.8
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1972 → 2021
$648
$100 in 2021 → 1972
$15.43
What happened to prices between 1972 and 2021
Between 1972 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 41.8 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 548.3%, which works out to an average of
3.89% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1972 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2021: the 1972 dollar
lost 84.6% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 2021 at the same ratio, 6.48: $1,000 becomes
$6,483, and $10,000 becomes $64,825.
Amount in 1972
Value in 2021
$1.00
$6.48
$5.00
$32.41
$10.00
$64.83
$20.00
$130
$50.00
$324
$100
$648
$500
$3,241
$1,000
$6,483
$5,000
$32,413
$10,000
$64,825
$100,000
$648,254
$1,000,000
$6,482,536
Inflation by spending category, 1972–2021
Between 1972 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 1308.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 94.2%, against 548.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1972
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1972 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.89%
$648
Medical care
5.55%
$1,408
Energy
4.53%
$876
Housing
4.09%
$712
Food
3.93%
$660
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.83%
$630
Transportation
3.65%
$578
Apparel
1.36%
$194
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1972: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1972 to 2021
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.85% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1972–2021 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$619
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$648
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1972
$100 from 1972 had already become $375 by
1996, on its way to $648 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1972 had the buying
power of $648; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1972 to 2021: $100 is worth $648 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1972 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1972-to-2021/