$100 in 1975 is worth $481 in 2020,
because prices increased 381.1% over that period, an average of
3.55% a year.
$100 in 1975 has
the same buying power as
$481
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
381.1%
Average inflation rate
3.55% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$481
Price difference ($100 base)
$381
CPI in 1975
53.8
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1975 → 2020
$481
$100 in 2020 → 1975
$20.79
What happened to prices between 1975 and 2020
Between 1975 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 53.8 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 381.1%, which works out to an average of
3.55% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1975 bought what
$0.21 buys in 2020: the 1975 dollar
lost 79.2% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 2020 at the same ratio, 4.81: $1,000 becomes
$4,811, and $10,000 becomes $48,106.
Amount in 1975
Value in 2020
$1.00
$4.81
$5.00
$24.05
$10.00
$48.11
$20.00
$96.21
$50.00
$241
$100
$481
$500
$2,405
$1,000
$4,811
$5,000
$24,053
$10,000
$48,106
$100,000
$481,061
$1,000,000
$4,810,613
Inflation by spending category, 1975–2020
Between 1975 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 992.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 62.9%, against 381.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1975
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1975 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.55%
$481
Medical care
5.46%
$1,092
Housing
3.80%
$536
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.63%
$497
Energy
3.49%
$468
Food
3.38%
$447
Transportation
3.14%
$402
Apparel
1.09%
$163
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1975: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1975 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 8.90% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1975–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$481
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1975
$100 from 1975 had already become $298 by
1997, on its way to $481 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1975 had the buying
power of $481; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1975 to 2020: $100 is worth $481 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1975 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1975-to-2020/