$100 in 1978 is worth $148 in 1982,
because prices increased 48.0% over that period, an average of
10.30% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$148
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
48.0%
Average inflation rate
10.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$148
Price difference ($100 base)
$48.01
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1978 → 1982
$148
$100 in 1982 → 1978
$67.56
What happened to prices between 1978 and 1982
Between 1978 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 48.0%, which works out to an average of
10.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.68 buys in 1982: the 1978 dollar
lost 32.4% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1982 at the same ratio, 1.48: $1,000 becomes
$1,480, and $10,000 becomes $14,801.
Amount in 1978
Value in 1982
$1.00
$1.48
$5.00
$7.40
$10.00
$14.80
$20.00
$29.60
$50.00
$74.00
$100
$148
$500
$740
$1,000
$1,480
$5,000
$7,400
$10,000
$14,801
$100,000
$148,006
$1,000,000
$1,480,061
Inflation by spending category, 1978–1982
Between 1978 and 1982, energy rose the most, up 89.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 20.1%, against 48.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
10.30%
$148
Energy
17.24%
$189
Transportation
11.98%
$157
Housing
11.63%
$155
Medical care
10.61%
$150
Core (all items less food & energy)
9.97%
$146
Food
7.85%
$135
Apparel
4.70%
$120
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (8.22% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1978, at end
1978–1980
12.42%
26.4%
$126
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$148
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $126 by
1980, on its way to $148 in 1982; 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 the smallest rise was 6.2% in 1982.
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $148; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 1982: $100 is worth $148 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-1982/