$100 in 1978 is worth $309 in 2006,
because prices increased 209.2% over that period, an average of
4.11% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$309
in 2006
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
209.2%
Average inflation rate
4.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$309
Price difference ($100 base)
$209
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2006
201.6
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2006
3.23%
$100 in 1978 → 2006
$309
$100 in 2006 → 1978
$32.34
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2006
Between 1978 and 2006, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 201.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 209.2%, which works out to an average of
4.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.32 buys in 2006: the 1978 dollar
lost 67.7% of its purchasing power over
these 28 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 2006 at the same ratio, 3.09: $1,000 becomes
$3,092, and $10,000 becomes $30,920.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2006
$1.00
$3.09
$5.00
$15.46
$10.00
$30.92
$20.00
$61.84
$50.00
$155
$100
$309
$500
$1,546
$1,000
$3,092
$5,000
$15,460
$10,000
$30,920
$100,000
$309,202
$1,000,000
$3,092,025
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2006
Between 1978 and 2006, medical care rose the most, up 444.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 46.8%, against 209.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2006, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.11%
$309
Medical care
6.24%
$544
Energy
4.83%
$375
Housing
4.31%
$326
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.18%
$314
Transportation
3.92%
$293
Food
3.63%
$271
Apparel
1.38%
$147
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2006
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.66% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–2006 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
2000–2006
2.66%
17.1%
$309
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $215 by
1992, on its way to $309 in 2006; 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 2006, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $309; the year's average CPI of 201.6 is the level
behind every 2006 figure on this page.
Inflation was 3.2% in 2006 and gasoline averaged $2.59 a gallon, up 29 cents from 2005. The
median household earned about $48,200 and the median new home cost $246,500, a gain of about
2% after a 13% jump in 2004 and 9% in 2005. National home prices, by the S&P/Case-Shiller
index, peaked in mid-2006. Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chair on
February 1, and on June 29 the Fed raised its policy rate to 5.25%, the last of 17 straight
quarter-point increases. It held there for over a year. A first-class stamp rose to 39 cents in
January, and the federal minimum wage was $5.15 for the ninth full year in a row.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2006: $100 is worth $309 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2006/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2006. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2006/