$100 in 1978 is worth $329 in 2009,
because prices increased 229.0% over that period, an average of
3.92% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$329
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
229.0%
Average inflation rate
3.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$329
Price difference ($100 base)
$229
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1978 → 2009
$329
$100 in 2009 → 1978
$30.39
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2009
Between 1978 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 229.0%, which works out to an average of
3.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.30 buys in 2009: the 1978 dollar
lost 69.6% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 2009 at the same ratio, 3.29: $1,000 becomes
$3,290, and $10,000 becomes $32,904.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2009
$1.00
$3.29
$5.00
$16.45
$10.00
$32.90
$20.00
$65.81
$50.00
$165
$100
$329
$500
$1,645
$1,000
$3,290
$5,000
$16,452
$10,000
$32,904
$100,000
$329,044
$1,000,000
$3,290,445
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2009
Between 1978 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 507.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 47.5%, against 229.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.92%
$329
Medical care
5.99%
$608
Energy
4.29%
$368
Housing
4.10%
$348
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.97%
$335
Food
3.64%
$303
Transportation
3.50%
$291
Apparel
1.26%
$148
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$329
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $227 by
1994, on its way to $329 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $329; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2009: $100 is worth $329 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2009/