$100 in 1975 is worth $200 in 1985,
because prices increased 100.0% over that period, an average of
7.18% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$200
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
100.0%
Average inflation rate
7.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$200
Price difference ($100 base)
$100
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1975 → 1985
$200
$100 in 1985 → 1975
$50.00
What happened to prices between 1975 and 1985
Between 1975 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 100.0%, which works out to an average of
7.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1985: the 1975 dollar
lost 50.0% of its purchasing power over
these 10 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 1985 at the same ratio, 2.00: $1,000 becomes
$2,000, and $10,000 becomes $20,000.
Amount in 1975
Value in 1985
$1.00
$2.00
$5.00
$10.00
$10.00
$20.00
$20.00
$40.00
$50.00
$100
$100
$200
$500
$1,000
$1,000
$2,000
$5,000
$10,000
$10,000
$20,000
$100,000
$200,000
$1,000,000
$2,000,000
Inflation by spending category, 1975–1985
Between 1975 and 1985, energy rose the most, up 141.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 44.8%, against 100.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.18%
$200
Energy
9.21%
$241
Medical care
9.10%
$239
Housing
7.83%
$212
Transportation
7.82%
$212
Core (all items less food & energy)
7.31%
$202
Food
5.85%
$177
Apparel
3.77%
$145
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1975 to 1985
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.90% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (5.48% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1975–1985 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1975, at end
1975–1980
8.90%
53.2%
$153
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$200
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $153 by
1980, on its way to $200 in 1985; 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 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $200; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 1985: $100 is worth $200 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-1985/