$100 in 1973 is worth $610 in 2021,
because prices increased 510.3% over that period, an average of
3.84% a year.
$100 in 1973 has
the same buying power as
$610
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
510.3%
Average inflation rate
3.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$610
Price difference ($100 base)
$510
CPI in 1973
44.4
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1973 → 2021
$610
$100 in 2021 → 1973
$16.39
What happened to prices between 1973 and 2021
Between 1973 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 44.4 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 510.3%, which works out to an average of
3.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1973 bought what
$0.16 buys in 2021: the 1973 dollar
lost 83.6% of its purchasing power over
these 48 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 2021 at the same ratio, 6.10: $1,000 becomes
$6,103, and $10,000 becomes $61,029.
Amount in 1973
Value in 2021
$1.00
$6.10
$5.00
$30.51
$10.00
$61.03
$20.00
$122
$50.00
$305
$100
$610
$500
$3,051
$1,000
$6,103
$5,000
$30,515
$10,000
$61,029
$100,000
$610,293
$1,000,000
$6,102,928
Inflation by spending category, 1973–2021
Between 1973 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 1253.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 87.3%, against 510.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1973
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1973 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.84%
$610
Medical care
5.58%
$1,354
Energy
4.46%
$811
Housing
4.08%
$681
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.83%
$608
Food
3.72%
$576
Transportation
3.65%
$560
Apparel
1.32%
$187
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1973: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1973 to 2021
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 1973–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$610
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1973
$100 from 1973 had already become $361 by
1997, on its way to $610 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 1973 had the buying
power of $610; 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 1973 to 2021: $100 is worth $610 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1973 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1973-to-2021/