$100 in 1978 is worth $334 in 2010,
because prices increased 234.4% over that period, an average of
3.84% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$334
in 2010
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
234.4%
Average inflation rate
3.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$334
Price difference ($100 base)
$234
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2010
218.056
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2010
1.64%
$100 in 1978 → 2010
$334
$100 in 2010 → 1978
$29.90
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2010
Between 1978 and 2010, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 218.056.
Cumulatively, prices increased 234.4%, which works out to an average of
3.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.30 buys in 2010: the 1978 dollar
lost 70.1% of its purchasing power over
these 32 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 2010 at the same ratio, 3.34: $1,000 becomes
$3,344, and $10,000 becomes $33,444.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2010
$1.00
$3.34
$5.00
$16.72
$10.00
$33.44
$20.00
$66.89
$50.00
$167
$100
$334
$500
$1,672
$1,000
$3,344
$5,000
$16,722
$10,000
$33,444
$100,000
$334,442
$1,000,000
$3,344,417
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2010
Between 1978 and 2010, medical care rose the most, up 528.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 46.8%, against 234.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2010, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.84%
$334
Medical care
5.91%
$629
Energy
4.45%
$403
Housing
3.96%
$347
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.88%
$338
Transportation
3.63%
$313
Food
3.55%
$305
Apparel
1.21%
$147
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2010
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–2010 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$334
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $227 by
1994, on its way to $334 in 2010; 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: 2010
In 2010, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $334; the year's average CPI of 218.056 is the level
behind every 2010 figure on this page.
2010 was a year of recovery without much price pressure. The CPI rose 1.6%, a
return to growth after 2009’s deflation, with gasoline averaging $2.78 a
gallon as energy prices climbed back from their recession lows. Housing costs
barely moved: millions of foreclosed and vacant homes kept rents soft, and the
median new home sold for about $221,800. The federal minimum wage stayed at
$7.25, the level set in July 2009, and a first-class stamp cost 44 cents.
The Federal Reserve was more worried about too little inflation than too
much. Its policy rate sat at 0–0.25%, and in November it announced a further
$600 billion of Treasury purchases to hold down long-term borrowing costs.
Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act in July to tighten financial regulation,
while a 110 billion euro rescue of Greece in May showed that the crisis had
moved from American mortgages to European government debt. For anyone
comparing dollars across the decade, 2010 is a useful baseline: prices were
still close to their 2008 levels, and the years ahead brought a slow, steady
climb.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2010: $100 is worth $334 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2010/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2010. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2010/