$100 in 1975 is worth $193 in 1984,
because prices increased 93.1% over that period, an average of
7.59% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$193
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
93.1%
Average inflation rate
7.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$193
Price difference ($100 base)
$93.12
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1975 → 1984
$193
$100 in 1984 → 1975
$51.78
What happened to prices between 1975 and 1984
Between 1975 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 93.1%, which works out to an average of
7.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.52 buys in 1984: the 1975 dollar
lost 48.2% of its purchasing power over
these 9 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 1984 at the same ratio, 1.93: $1,000 becomes
$1,931, and $10,000 becomes $19,312.
Amount in 1975
Value in 1984
$1.00
$1.93
$5.00
$9.66
$10.00
$19.31
$20.00
$38.62
$50.00
$96.56
$100
$193
$500
$966
$1,000
$1,931
$5,000
$9,656
$10,000
$19,312
$100,000
$193,123
$1,000,000
$1,931,227
Inflation by spending category, 1975–1984
Between 1975 and 1984, energy rose the most, up 139.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 40.8%, against 93.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.59%
$193
Energy
10.20%
$240
Medical care
9.42%
$225
Transportation
8.42%
$207
Housing
8.26%
$204
Core (all items less food & energy)
7.64%
$194
Food
6.25%
$173
Apparel
3.88%
$141
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1975 to 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.90% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (5.97% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1975–1984 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1975, at end
1975–1980
8.90%
53.2%
$153
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$193
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $135 by
1979, on its way to $193 in 1984; 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 the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1983.
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $193; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 1984: $100 is worth $193 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-1984/