$100 in 1978 is worth $352 in 2012,
because prices increased 252.1% over that period, an average of
3.77% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$352
in 2012
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
252.1%
Average inflation rate
3.77% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$352
Price difference ($100 base)
$252
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2012
229.594
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2012
2.07%
$100 in 1978 → 2012
$352
$100 in 2012 → 1978
$28.40
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2012
Between 1978 and 2012, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 229.594.
Cumulatively, prices increased 252.1%, which works out to an average of
3.77% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.28 buys in 2012: the 1978 dollar
lost 71.6% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 2012 at the same ratio, 3.52: $1,000 becomes
$3,521, and $10,000 becomes $35,214.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2012
$1.00
$3.52
$5.00
$17.61
$10.00
$35.21
$20.00
$70.43
$50.00
$176
$100
$352
$500
$1,761
$1,000
$3,521
$5,000
$17,607
$10,000
$35,214
$100,000
$352,138
$1,000,000
$3,521,380
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2012
Between 1978 and 2012, medical care rose the most, up 571.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 55.1%, against 252.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2012, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.77%
$352
Medical care
5.76%
$671
Energy
4.65%
$469
Housing
3.81%
$357
Transportation
3.77%
$352
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.76%
$351
Food
3.52%
$325
Apparel
1.30%
$155
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2012
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 1978–2012 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
2010–2012
2.61%
5.3%
$352
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $227 by
1994, on its way to $352 in 2012; 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: 2012
In 2012, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $352; the year's average CPI of 229.594 is the level
behind every 2012 figure on this page.
2012 put a number on what the Federal Reserve was aiming for. In January the
Fed announced a 2% inflation target, and consumer prices rose 2.1% for the
year, almost exactly on it. Gasoline averaged $3.62 a gallon, another annual
high, but the pace of increase cooled from 2011’s 3.2% as food and core prices
grew more slowly.
The bigger story was housing and jobs. Home prices began to recover, and the
median new home sold for about $245,200, up from $227,200 the year before.
Median household income was $51,017. The federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 45 cents.
In September the Fed started a third round of asset purchases, this one with
no fixed end date, aimed at lowering unemployment. Overseas, the European
Central Bank’s July pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro calmed
bond markets. A summer drought across the Midwest drove corn and soybean
prices to records, a shock that reached grocery shelves only partly, because
most of what shoppers pay for food covers processing and transport rather than
raw crops.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2012: $100 is worth $352 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2012/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2012. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2012/