$100 in 1973 is worth $507 in 2011,
because prices increased 406.6% over that period, an average of
4.36% a year.
$100 in 1973 has
the same buying power as
$507
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
406.6%
Average inflation rate
4.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$507
Price difference ($100 base)
$407
CPI in 1973
44.4
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1973 → 2011
$507
$100 in 2011 → 1973
$19.74
What happened to prices between 1973 and 2011
Between 1973 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 44.4 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 406.6%, which works out to an average of
4.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1973 bought what
$0.20 buys in 2011: the 1973 dollar
lost 80.3% of its purchasing power over
these 38 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 2011 at the same ratio, 5.07: $1,000 becomes
$5,066, and $10,000 becomes $50,662.
Amount in 1973
Value in 2011
$1.00
$5.07
$5.00
$25.33
$10.00
$50.66
$20.00
$101
$50.00
$253
$100
$507
$500
$2,533
$1,000
$5,066
$5,000
$25,331
$10,000
$50,662
$100,000
$506,619
$1,000,000
$5,066,194
Inflation by spending category, 1973–2011
Between 1973 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 931.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 89.0%, against 406.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1973
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1973 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.36%
$507
Medical care
6.33%
$1,032
Energy
5.73%
$830
Housing
4.50%
$532
Transportation
4.41%
$515
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.29%
$493
Food
4.17%
$473
Apparel
1.69%
$189
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1973: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1973 to 2011
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 9.24% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1973–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$491
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$507
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1973
$100 from 1973 had already become $307 by
1991, on its way to $507 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 1973 had the buying
power of $507; 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 1973 to 2011: $100 is worth $507 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1973 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2011/