$100 in 1975 is worth $467 in 2018,
because prices increased 366.7% over that period, an average of
3.65% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$467
in 2018
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
366.7%
Average inflation rate
3.65% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$467
Price difference ($100 base)
$367
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 2018
251.107
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 2018
2.44%
$100 in 1975 → 2018
$467
$100 in 2018 → 1975
$21.43
What happened to prices between 1975 and 2018
Between 1975 and 2018, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 251.107.
Cumulatively, prices increased 366.7%, which works out to an average of
3.65% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.21 buys in 2018: the 1975 dollar
lost 78.6% of its purchasing power over
these 43 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 2018 at the same ratio, 4.67: $1,000 becomes
$4,667, and $10,000 becomes $46,674.
Amount in 1975
Value in 2018
$1.00
$4.67
$5.00
$23.34
$10.00
$46.67
$20.00
$93.35
$50.00
$233
$100
$467
$500
$2,334
$1,000
$4,667
$5,000
$23,337
$10,000
$46,674
$100,000
$466,742
$1,000,000
$4,667,416
Inflation by spending category, 1975–2018
Between 1975 and 2018, medical care rose the most, up 920.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 73.3%, against 366.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 2018, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.65%
$467
Medical care
5.55%
$1,020
Energy
3.92%
$522
Housing
3.86%
$510
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.70%
$478
Food
3.42%
$424
Transportation
3.40%
$420
Apparel
1.29%
$173
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1975 to 2018
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.90% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.78% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1975–2018 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
2010–2018
1.78%
15.2%
$467
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $298 by
1997, on its way to $467 in 2018; 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: 2018
In 2018, prices rose 2.4% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $467; the year's average CPI of 251.107 is the level
behind every 2018 figure on this page.
2018 was the peak of the late-2010s expansion. Consumer prices rose 2.4%,
the fastest since 2011, with gasoline averaging $2.72 a gallon after a summer
high. Unemployment fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969, and median
household income reached $63,179. The median new home sold for about $331,800,
and a first-class stamp cost 50 cents. The federal minimum wage was still $7.25.
Trade policy became a price factor for the first time in decades. New tariffs
on steel, aluminum, and a growing list of Chinese goods raised costs for
manufacturers and some consumer products, and retaliation cut into exports of
soybeans and other farm goods.
The Federal Reserve, led from February by Jerome Powell, raised rates four
times to 2.25–2.50%. A stock-market drop of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter
led the Fed to signal a pause in early 2019. Oil fell from over $75 a barrel in
October to below $50 by December, which pulled headline inflation lower going
into the next year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 2018: $100 is worth $467 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2018/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 2018. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2018/