$100 in 1973 is worth $425 in 2004,
because prices increased 325.5% over that period, an average of
4.78% a year.
$100 in 1973 has
the same buying power as
$425
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
325.5%
Average inflation rate
4.78% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$425
Price difference ($100 base)
$325
CPI in 1973
44.4
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1973 → 2004
$425
$100 in 2004 → 1973
$23.50
What happened to prices between 1973 and 2004
Between 1973 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 44.4 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 325.5%, which works out to an average of
4.78% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1973 bought what
$0.24 buys in 2004: the 1973 dollar
lost 76.5% of its purchasing power over
these 31 years.
Consumer prices rose 6.2% in 1973, nearly double 1972’s 3.2%,
as Nixon’s wage and price controls were phased out through the year and
pressure the controls had been holding back broke loose. The bigger shock
arrived that October, when Arab oil-producing states embargoed exports to the
United States and other supporters of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Crude
oil, which had traded around $3 a barrel, approached $12 by early 1974, and
gas lines became a fixture outside filling stations nationwide. Earlier in
the year, the Paris Peace Accords, signed that January 27, ended direct
American combat in Vietnam and set a 60-day deadline for withdrawing
remaining U.S. troops, even as fighting between North and South Vietnam went
on. Financial markets read the year correctly as a turning point: the Dow
Jones Industrial Average peaked at 1,051.70 on January 11, a level it would
not reach again until 1980, before the oil shock and rising interest rates
dragged it into a two-year bear market. A median household earned $10,512 in
1973, a new home sold for a median $32,500, and gas averaged 38.5 cents a
gallon, still under half of what the embargo’s effects would bring the
following year. Consumer prices stood 348.5% above their
1913 level by year’s end, with the decade’s worst inflation
still ahead.
Every 1973 amount converts to 2004 at the same ratio, 4.25: $1,000 becomes
$4,255, and $10,000 becomes $42,545.
Amount in 1973
Value in 2004
$1.00
$4.25
$5.00
$21.27
$10.00
$42.55
$20.00
$85.09
$50.00
$213
$100
$425
$500
$2,127
$1,000
$4,255
$5,000
$21,273
$10,000
$42,545
$100,000
$425,450
$1,000,000
$4,254,505
Inflation by spending category, 1973–2004
Between 1973 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 699.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 86.4%, against 325.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1973
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1973 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.78%
$425
Medical care
6.93%
$799
Energy
5.43%
$515
Housing
5.05%
$460
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.83%
$431
Transportation
4.54%
$396
Food
4.46%
$386
Apparel
2.03%
$186
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1973: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1973 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 9.24% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1973–2004 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1973, at end
1973–1980
9.24%
85.6%
$186
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$294
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$388
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$425
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1973
$100 from 1973 had already become $279 by
1989, on its way to $425 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 1973 had the buying
power of $425; 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 1973 to 2004: $100 is worth $425 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1973 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2004/