$100 in 1978 is worth $290 in 2004,
because prices increased 189.7% over that period, an average of
4.18% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$290
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
189.7%
Average inflation rate
4.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$290
Price difference ($100 base)
$190
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1978 → 2004
$290
$100 in 2004 → 1978
$34.52
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2004
Between 1978 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 189.7%, which works out to an average of
4.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.35 buys in 2004: the 1978 dollar
lost 65.5% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 2004 at the same ratio, 2.90: $1,000 becomes
$2,897, and $10,000 becomes $28,972.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2004
$1.00
$2.90
$5.00
$14.49
$10.00
$28.97
$20.00
$57.94
$50.00
$145
$100
$290
$500
$1,449
$1,000
$2,897
$5,000
$14,486
$10,000
$28,972
$100,000
$289,724
$1,000,000
$2,897,239
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2004
Between 1978 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 401.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 47.9%, against 189.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.18%
$290
Medical care
6.40%
$502
Housing
4.36%
$304
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.32%
$300
Energy
4.16%
$288
Transportation
3.81%
$264
Food
3.72%
$259
Apparel
1.52%
$148
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–2004 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1978, at end
1978–1980
12.42%
26.4%
$126
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$200
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$264
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$290
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $209 by
1991, on its way to $290 in 2004; 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 1.6% in 1998.
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $290; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2004: $100 is worth $290 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2004/