$100 in 1975 is worth $418 in 2011,
because prices increased 318.1% over that period, an average of
4.05% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$418
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
318.1%
Average inflation rate
4.05% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$418
Price difference ($100 base)
$318
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1975 → 2011
$418
$100 in 2011 → 1975
$23.92
What happened to prices between 1975 and 2011
Between 1975 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 318.1%, which works out to an average of
4.05% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.24 buys in 2011: the 1975 dollar
lost 76.1% of its purchasing power over
these 36 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 2011 at the same ratio, 4.18: $1,000 becomes
$4,181, and $10,000 becomes $41,810.
Amount in 1975
Value in 2011
$1.00
$4.18
$5.00
$20.91
$10.00
$41.81
$20.00
$83.62
$50.00
$209
$100
$418
$500
$2,091
$1,000
$4,181
$5,000
$20,905
$10,000
$41,810
$100,000
$418,102
$1,000,000
$4,181,022
Inflation by spending category, 1975–2011
Between 1975 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 742.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 68.4%, against 318.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.05%
$418
Medical care
6.10%
$843
Energy
5.00%
$579
Housing
4.15%
$432
Transportation
4.09%
$424
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.05%
$417
Food
3.79%
$381
Apparel
1.46%
$168
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1975 to 2011
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.90% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1975–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$405
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$418
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $269 by
1993, on its way to $418 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $418; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 2011: $100 is worth $418 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2011/