$100 in 1978 is worth $385 in 2018,
because prices increased 285.1% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$385
in 2018
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
285.1%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$385
Price difference ($100 base)
$285
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2018
251.107
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2018
2.44%
$100 in 1978 → 2018
$385
$100 in 2018 → 1978
$25.97
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2018
Between 1978 and 2018, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 251.107.
Cumulatively, prices increased 285.1%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.26 buys in 2018: the 1978 dollar
lost 74.0% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 2018 at the same ratio, 3.85: $1,000 becomes
$3,851, and $10,000 becomes $38,513.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2018
$1.00
$3.85
$5.00
$19.26
$10.00
$38.51
$20.00
$77.03
$50.00
$193
$100
$385
$500
$1,926
$1,000
$3,851
$5,000
$19,257
$10,000
$38,513
$100,000
$385,133
$1,000,000
$3,851,334
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2018
Between 1978 and 2018, medical care rose the most, up 684.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 54.4%, against 285.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2018, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$385
Medical care
5.28%
$784
Energy
3.65%
$419
Housing
3.62%
$414
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.48%
$393
Food
3.20%
$352
Transportation
3.12%
$341
Apparel
1.09%
$154
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2018
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.78% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–2018 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
2010–2018
1.78%
15.2%
$385
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $250 by
1998, on its way to $385 in 2018; 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: 2018
In 2018, prices rose 2.4% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $385; the year's average CPI of 251.107 is the level
behind every 2018 figure on this page.
2018 was the peak of the late-2010s expansion. Consumer prices rose 2.4%,
the fastest since 2011, with gasoline averaging $2.72 a gallon after a summer
high. Unemployment fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969, and median
household income reached $63,179. The median new home sold for about $331,800,
and a first-class stamp cost 50 cents. The federal minimum wage was still $7.25.
Trade policy became a price factor for the first time in decades. New tariffs
on steel, aluminum, and a growing list of Chinese goods raised costs for
manufacturers and some consumer products, and retaliation cut into exports of
soybeans and other farm goods.
The Federal Reserve, led from February by Jerome Powell, raised rates four
times to 2.25–2.50%. A stock-market drop of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter
led the Fed to signal a pause in early 2019. Oil fell from over $75 a barrel in
October to below $50 by December, which pulled headline inflation lower going
into the next year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2018: $100 is worth $385 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2018/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2018. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2018/