$100 in 1978 is worth $376 in 2017,
because prices increased 276.0% over that period, an average of
3.45% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$376
in 2017
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
276.0%
Average inflation rate
3.45% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$376
Price difference ($100 base)
$276
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2017
245.12
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2017
2.13%
$100 in 1978 → 2017
$376
$100 in 2017 → 1978
$26.60
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2017
Between 1978 and 2017, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 245.12.
Cumulatively, prices increased 276.0%, which works out to an average of
3.45% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.27 buys in 2017: the 1978 dollar
lost 73.4% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 2017 at the same ratio, 3.76: $1,000 becomes
$3,760, and $10,000 becomes $37,595.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2017
$1.00
$3.76
$5.00
$18.80
$10.00
$37.60
$20.00
$75.19
$50.00
$188
$100
$376
$500
$1,880
$1,000
$3,760
$5,000
$18,798
$10,000
$37,595
$100,000
$375,951
$1,000,000
$3,759,509
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2017
Between 1978 and 2017, medical care rose the most, up 669.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 54.3%, against 276.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2017, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.45%
$376
Medical care
5.37%
$769
Housing
3.64%
$403
Energy
3.55%
$390
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.52%
$385
Food
3.24%
$347
Transportation
3.08%
$327
Apparel
1.12%
$154
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2017
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.69% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–2017 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
2010–2017
1.69%
12.4%
$376
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $250 by
1998, on its way to $376 in 2017; 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: 2017
In 2017, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $376; the year's average CPI of 245.12 is the level
behind every 2017 figure on this page.
2017 pushed consumer prices back above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The
CPI rose 2.1%, the first reading over 2% in five years, helped by a rebound
in energy after OPEC’s output cuts and by a storm-related spike at the pump:
Hurricane Harvey shut a large part of Gulf Coast refining in late August.
Gasoline averaged $2.42 a gallon, up from $2.14 in 2016.
Household incomes kept rising. The median household income reached $61,372,
and the median new home sold for about $322,100. The federal minimum wage
stayed at $7.25, its eighth year at that level, and a first-class stamp rose
to 49 cents.
The Fed raised rates three times, to 1.25–1.50%, and in October began
letting its bond holdings shrink. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
in December, lowering the corporate rate to 21%. Even with unemployment near
4%, core inflation stayed under 2%, a puzzle that shaped Fed debates for the
next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2017: $100 is worth $376 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2017/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2017. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2017/