$100 in 1975 is worth $351 in 2004,
because prices increased 251.1% over that period, an average of
4.43% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$351
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
251.1%
Average inflation rate
4.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$351
Price difference ($100 base)
$251
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1975 → 2004
$351
$100 in 2004 → 1975
$28.48
What happened to prices between 1975 and 2004
Between 1975 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 251.1%, which works out to an average of
4.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.28 buys in 2004: the 1975 dollar
lost 71.5% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 2004 at the same ratio, 3.51: $1,000 becomes
$3,511, and $10,000 becomes $35,112.
Amount in 1975
Value in 2004
$1.00
$3.51
$5.00
$17.56
$10.00
$35.11
$20.00
$70.22
$50.00
$176
$100
$351
$500
$1,756
$1,000
$3,511
$5,000
$17,556
$10,000
$35,112
$100,000
$351,115
$1,000,000
$3,511,152
Inflation by spending category, 1975–2004
Between 1975 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 552.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 66.1%, against 251.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.43%
$351
Medical care
6.68%
$653
Housing
4.65%
$374
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.56%
$365
Energy
4.51%
$360
Transportation
4.15%
$326
Food
3.99%
$311
Apparel
1.76%
$166
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1975 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.90% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1975–2004 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1975, at end
1975–1980
8.90%
53.2%
$153
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$243
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$320
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$351
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $230 by
1989, on its way to $351 in 2004; 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 1.6% in 1998.
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $351; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 2004: $100 is worth $351 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2004/