$100 in 1975 is worth $475 in 2019,
because prices increased 375.2% over that period, an average of
3.61% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$475
in 2019
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
375.2%
Average inflation rate
3.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$475
Price difference ($100 base)
$375
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 2019
255.657
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 2019
1.81%
$100 in 1975 → 2019
$475
$100 in 2019 → 1975
$21.04
What happened to prices between 1975 and 2019
Between 1975 and 2019, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 255.657.
Cumulatively, prices increased 375.2%, which works out to an average of
3.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.21 buys in 2019: the 1975 dollar
lost 79.0% of its purchasing power over
these 44 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 2019 at the same ratio, 4.75: $1,000 becomes
$4,752, and $10,000 becomes $47,520.
Amount in 1975
Value in 2019
$1.00
$4.75
$5.00
$23.76
$10.00
$47.52
$20.00
$95.04
$50.00
$238
$100
$475
$500
$2,376
$1,000
$4,752
$5,000
$23,760
$10,000
$47,520
$100,000
$475,199
$1,000,000
$4,751,989
Inflation by spending category, 1975–2019
Between 1975 and 2019, medical care rose the most, up 949.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 71.1%, against 375.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 2019, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.61%
$475
Medical care
5.49%
$1,049
Housing
3.84%
$525
Energy
3.78%
$511
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.67%
$488
Food
3.38%
$432
Transportation
3.31%
$419
Apparel
1.23%
$171
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1975 to 2019
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 1975–2019 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
2010–2019
1.78%
17.2%
$475
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $298 by
1997, on its way to $475 in 2019; 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: 2019
In 2019, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $475; the year's average CPI of 255.657 is the level
behind every 2019 figure on this page.
2019 was the last ordinary year before COVID-19. Consumer prices rose 1.8%,
slightly under the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, with gasoline averaging
$2.60 a gallon. Median household income jumped to $68,703, the highest on
record up to that point, and the median new home sold for about $328,000. A
first-class stamp rose to 55 cents.
The Fed reversed course. After four increases in 2018, it cut rates three
times, to 1.50–1.75%, citing slower global growth, trade tensions, and low
inflation. In July the expansion that began in June 2009 became the longest in
U.S. records, and in August the yield curve briefly inverted, a signal
investors read as a recession warning.
For workers at the bottom of the pay scale, 2019 marked a milestone of a
different kind. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and reached its tenth
year without an increase, the longest gap since the wage was first set. Because
prices had climbed about 19% since it was last raised in 2009, its buying power
was lower than at any point in that span.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 2019: $100 is worth $475 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2019/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 2019. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2019/