$100 in 1973 is worth $483 in 2009,
because prices increased 383.2% over that period, an average of
4.47% a year.
$100 in 1973 has
the same buying power as
$483
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
383.2%
Average inflation rate
4.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$483
Price difference ($100 base)
$383
CPI in 1973
44.4
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1973 → 2009
$483
$100 in 2009 → 1973
$20.70
What happened to prices between 1973 and 2009
Between 1973 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 44.4 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 383.2%, which works out to an average of
4.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1973 bought what
$0.21 buys in 2009: the 1973 dollar
lost 79.3% of its purchasing power over
these 36 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 2009 at the same ratio, 4.83: $1,000 becomes
$4,832, and $10,000 becomes $48,319.
Amount in 1973
Value in 2009
$1.00
$4.83
$5.00
$24.16
$10.00
$48.32
$20.00
$96.64
$50.00
$242
$100
$483
$500
$2,416
$1,000
$4,832
$5,000
$24,160
$10,000
$48,319
$100,000
$483,191
$1,000,000
$4,831,914
Inflation by spending category, 1973–2009
Between 1973 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 868.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 85.9%, against 383.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1973
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1973 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.47%
$483
Medical care
6.51%
$968
Energy
5.37%
$657
Housing
4.72%
$527
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.46%
$481
Food
4.28%
$452
Transportation
4.17%
$435
Apparel
1.74%
$186
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1973: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1973 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 9.24% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1973–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$483
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1973
$100 from 1973 had already become $307 by
1991, on its way to $483 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 1973 had the buying
power of $483; 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 1973 to 2009: $100 is worth $483 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1973 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2009/