$100 in 1978 is worth $300 in 2005,
because prices increased 199.5% over that period, an average of
4.15% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$300
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
199.5%
Average inflation rate
4.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$300
Price difference ($100 base)
$200
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1978 → 2005
$300
$100 in 2005 → 1978
$33.38
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2005
Between 1978 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 199.5%, which works out to an average of
4.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.33 buys in 2005: the 1978 dollar
lost 66.6% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 2005 at the same ratio, 3.00: $1,000 becomes
$2,995, and $10,000 becomes $29,954.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2005
$1.00
$3.00
$5.00
$14.98
$10.00
$29.95
$20.00
$59.91
$50.00
$150
$100
$300
$500
$1,498
$1,000
$2,995
$5,000
$14,977
$10,000
$29,954
$100,000
$299,540
$1,000,000
$2,995,399
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2005
Between 1978 and 2005, medical care rose the most, up 423.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 46.8%, against 199.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.15%
$300
Medical care
6.32%
$523
Energy
4.61%
$337
Housing
4.32%
$314
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.24%
$307
Transportation
3.91%
$282
Food
3.67%
$265
Apparel
1.43%
$147
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2005
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.55% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–2005 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
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$300
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $209 by
1991, on its way to $300 in 2005; 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 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $300; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2005: $100 is worth $300 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2005/