$100 in 1975 is worth $121 in 1978,
because prices increased 21.2% over that period, an average of
6.62% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$121
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
21.2%
Average inflation rate
6.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$121
Price difference ($100 base)
$21.19
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1975 → 1978
$121
$100 in 1978 → 1975
$82.52
What happened to prices between 1975 and 1978
Between 1975 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 21.2%, which works out to an average of
6.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.83 buys in 1978: the 1975 dollar
lost 17.5% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
Consumer prices rose 9.1% in 1975, easing slightly from 1974’s
11.0% but still running far above anything the country had experienced before
the decade began. The recession that started in November 1973, the deepest
since the Great Depression, bottomed out that March, yet unemployment kept
climbing through the year and touched 9%, a combination of high inflation and
high joblessness that had no precedent in the postwar data. Vietnam ended
that April 30, when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon and the last
Americans were evacuated by helicopter from the U.S. embassy roof. Fiscal
strain hit closer to home too: New York City, facing bankruptcy after years
of borrowing to paper over budget gaps, asked Washington for help that
October. President Ford’s initial refusal produced the Daily News headline
“Ford to City: Drop Dead,” though he ultimately signed a federal loan package
that December. Amid the gloom, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft
that April in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to sell a version of the BASIC
programming language for the Altair 8800, one of the first personal
computers sold to hobbyists. A median household earned $11,800 in 1975, a new
home sold for a median $39,300, and first-class postage held at 10 cents,
unchanged since 1974’s increase. Consumer prices stood 443.4%
above their 1913 level, with the decade barely past its
midpoint.
Every 1975 amount converts to 1978 at the same ratio, 1.21: $1,000 becomes
$1,212, and $10,000 becomes $12,119.
Amount in 1975
Value in 1978
$1.00
$1.21
$5.00
$6.06
$10.00
$12.12
$20.00
$24.24
$50.00
$60.59
$100
$121
$500
$606
$1,000
$1,212
$5,000
$6,059
$10,000
$12,119
$100,000
$121,190
$1,000,000
$1,211,896
Inflation by spending category, 1975–1978
Between 1975 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 30.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 12.3%, against 21.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.62%
$121
Medical care
9.17%
$130
Energy
7.64%
$125
Transportation
7.19%
$123
Housing
7.17%
$123
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.71%
$122
Food
6.38%
$120
Apparel
3.94%
$112
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $106 by
1976, on its way to $121 in 1978; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 7.6% in 1978, and the smallest rise was 5.8% in 1976.
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $121; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 1978: $100 is worth $121 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-1978/