$100 in 1978 is worth $159 in 1984,
because prices increased 59.4% over that period, an average of
8.08% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$159
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
59.4%
Average inflation rate
8.08% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$159
Price difference ($100 base)
$59.36
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1978 → 1984
$159
$100 in 1984 → 1978
$62.75
What happened to prices between 1978 and 1984
Between 1978 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 59.4%, which works out to an average of
8.08% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.63 buys in 1984: the 1978 dollar
lost 37.2% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1984 at the same ratio, 1.59: $1,000 becomes
$1,594, and $10,000 becomes $15,936.
Amount in 1978
Value in 1984
$1.00
$1.59
$5.00
$7.97
$10.00
$15.94
$20.00
$31.87
$50.00
$79.68
$100
$159
$500
$797
$1,000
$1,594
$5,000
$7,968
$10,000
$15,936
$100,000
$159,356
$1,000,000
$1,593,558
Inflation by spending category, 1978–1984
Between 1978 and 1984, energy rose the most, up 92.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 25.4%, against 59.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
8.08%
$159
Energy
11.50%
$192
Medical care
9.55%
$173
Transportation
9.04%
$168
Housing
8.82%
$166
Core (all items less food & energy)
8.11%
$160
Food
6.18%
$143
Apparel
3.85%
$125
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (5.97% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–1984 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1978, at end
1978–1980
12.42%
26.4%
$126
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$159
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $139 by
1981, on its way to $159 in 1984; 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 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $159; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 1984: $100 is worth $159 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-1984/