$100 in 1975 is worth $427 in 2012,
because prices increased 326.8% over that period, an average of
4.00% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$427
in 2012
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
326.8%
Average inflation rate
4.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$427
Price difference ($100 base)
$327
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 2012
229.594
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 2012
2.07%
$100 in 1975 → 2012
$427
$100 in 2012 → 1975
$23.43
What happened to prices between 1975 and 2012
Between 1975 and 2012, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 229.594.
Cumulatively, prices increased 326.8%, which works out to an average of
4.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.23 buys in 2012: the 1975 dollar
lost 76.6% of its purchasing power over
these 37 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 2012 at the same ratio, 4.27: $1,000 becomes
$4,268, and $10,000 becomes $42,675.
Amount in 1975
Value in 2012
$1.00
$4.27
$5.00
$21.34
$10.00
$42.68
$20.00
$85.35
$50.00
$213
$100
$427
$500
$2,134
$1,000
$4,268
$5,000
$21,338
$10,000
$42,675
$100,000
$426,755
$1,000,000
$4,267,546
Inflation by spending category, 1975–2012
Between 1975 and 2012, medical care rose the most, up 773.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 74.2%, against 326.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 2012, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.00%
$427
Medical care
6.03%
$874
Energy
4.89%
$585
Housing
4.08%
$439
Transportation
4.05%
$434
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.00%
$426
Food
3.75%
$391
Apparel
1.51%
$174
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1975 to 2012
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 1975–2012 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
2010–2012
2.61%
5.3%
$427
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $269 by
1993, on its way to $427 in 2012; 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: 2012
In 2012, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $427; the year's average CPI of 229.594 is the level
behind every 2012 figure on this page.
2012 put a number on what the Federal Reserve was aiming for. In January the
Fed announced a 2% inflation target, and consumer prices rose 2.1% for the
year, almost exactly on it. Gasoline averaged $3.62 a gallon, another annual
high, but the pace of increase cooled from 2011’s 3.2% as food and core prices
grew more slowly.
The bigger story was housing and jobs. Home prices began to recover, and the
median new home sold for about $245,200, up from $227,200 the year before.
Median household income was $51,017. The federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 45 cents.
In September the Fed started a third round of asset purchases, this one with
no fixed end date, aimed at lowering unemployment. Overseas, the European
Central Bank’s July pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro calmed
bond markets. A summer drought across the Midwest drove corn and soybean
prices to records, a shock that reached grocery shelves only partly, because
most of what shoppers pay for food covers processing and transport rather than
raw crops.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 2012: $100 is worth $427 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2012/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 2012. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2012/