$100 in 1973 is worth $583 in 2020,
because prices increased 482.9% over that period, an average of
3.82% a year.
$100 in 1973 has
the same buying power as
$583
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
482.9%
Average inflation rate
3.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$583
Price difference ($100 base)
$483
CPI in 1973
44.4
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1973 → 2020
$583
$100 in 2020 → 1973
$17.16
What happened to prices between 1973 and 2020
Between 1973 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 44.4 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 482.9%, which works out to an average of
3.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1973 bought what
$0.17 buys in 2020: the 1973 dollar
lost 82.8% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 2020 at the same ratio, 5.83: $1,000 becomes
$5,829, and $10,000 becomes $58,291.
Amount in 1973
Value in 2020
$1.00
$5.83
$5.00
$29.15
$10.00
$58.29
$20.00
$117
$50.00
$291
$100
$583
$500
$2,915
$1,000
$5,829
$5,000
$29,145
$10,000
$58,291
$100,000
$582,908
$1,000,000
$5,829,077
Inflation by spending category, 1973–2020
Between 1973 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 1237.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 82.8%, against 482.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1973
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1973 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.82%
$583
Medical care
5.67%
$1,337
Energy
4.13%
$670
Housing
4.10%
$660
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.84%
$587
Food
3.71%
$554
Transportation
3.43%
$489
Apparel
1.29%
$183
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1973: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1973 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 9.24% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1973–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$583
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1973
$100 from 1973 had already become $361 by
1997, on its way to $583 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1973 had the buying
power of $583; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1973 to 2020: $100 is worth $583 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1973 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2020/