$100 in 1978 is worth $111 in 1979,
because prices increased 11.3% over that period, an average of
11.35% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$111
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
11.3%
Average inflation rate
11.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$111
Price difference ($100 base)
$11.35
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1978 → 1979
$111
$100 in 1979 → 1978
$89.81
What happened to prices between 1978 and 1979
Between 1978 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 11.3%, which works out to an average of
11.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.90 buys in 1979: the 1978 dollar
lost 10.2% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
Every 1978 amount converts to 1979 at the same ratio, 1.11: $1,000 becomes
$1,113, and $10,000 becomes $11,135.
Amount in 1978
Value in 1979
$1.00
$1.11
$5.00
$5.57
$10.00
$11.13
$20.00
$22.27
$50.00
$55.67
$100
$111
$500
$557
$1,000
$1,113
$5,000
$5,567
$10,000
$11,135
$100,000
$111,350
$1,000,000
$1,113,497
Inflation by spending category, 1978–1979
Between 1978 and 1979, energy rose the most, up 25.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 4.3%, against 11.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
11.35%
$111
Energy
25.14%
$125
Transportation
14.26%
$114
Housing
12.34%
$112
Food
10.97%
$111
Core (all items less food & energy)
9.77%
$110
Medical care
9.22%
$109
Apparel
4.30%
$104
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978grew to $111 by 1979; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $111; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 1979: $100 is worth $111 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-1979/