$100 in 1978 is worth $153 in 1983,
because prices increased 52.8% over that period, an average of
8.84% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$153
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
52.8%
Average inflation rate
8.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$153
Price difference ($100 base)
$52.76
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1978 → 1983
$153
$100 in 1983 → 1978
$65.46
What happened to prices between 1978 and 1983
Between 1978 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 52.8%, which works out to an average of
8.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1983: the 1978 dollar
lost 34.5% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1983 at the same ratio, 1.53: $1,000 becomes
$1,528, and $10,000 becomes $15,276.
Amount in 1978
Value in 1983
$1.00
$1.53
$5.00
$7.64
$10.00
$15.28
$20.00
$30.55
$50.00
$76.38
$100
$153
$500
$764
$1,000
$1,528
$5,000
$7,638
$10,000
$15,276
$100,000
$152,761
$1,000,000
$1,527,607
Inflation by spending category, 1978–1983
Between 1978 and 1983, energy rose the most, up 90.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 23.1%, against 52.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
8.84%
$153
Energy
13.73%
$190
Medical care
10.24%
$163
Transportation
9.98%
$161
Housing
9.78%
$159
Core (all items less food & energy)
8.74%
$152
Food
6.66%
$138
Apparel
4.24%
$123
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 1983
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (6.52% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–1983 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1978, at end
1978–1980
12.42%
26.4%
$126
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$153
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $126 by
1980, on its way to $153 in 1983; 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 3.2% in 1983.
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $153; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 1983: $100 is worth $153 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-1983/