$100 in 1978 is worth $392 in 2019,
because prices increased 292.1% over that period, an average of
3.39% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$392
in 2019
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
292.1%
Average inflation rate
3.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$392
Price difference ($100 base)
$292
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2019
255.657
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2019
1.81%
$100 in 1978 → 2019
$392
$100 in 2019 → 1978
$25.50
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2019
Between 1978 and 2019, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 255.657.
Cumulatively, prices increased 292.1%, which works out to an average of
3.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.26 buys in 2019: the 1978 dollar
lost 74.5% of its purchasing power over
these 41 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 2019 at the same ratio, 3.92: $1,000 becomes
$3,921, and $10,000 becomes $39,211.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2019
$1.00
$3.92
$5.00
$19.61
$10.00
$39.21
$20.00
$78.42
$50.00
$196
$100
$392
$500
$1,961
$1,000
$3,921
$5,000
$19,606
$10,000
$39,211
$100,000
$392,112
$1,000,000
$3,921,120
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2019
Between 1978 and 2019, medical care rose the most, up 706.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 52.4%, against 292.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2019, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.39%
$392
Medical care
5.22%
$806
Housing
3.60%
$426
Energy
3.50%
$410
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.45%
$402
Food
3.16%
$359
Transportation
3.03%
$340
Apparel
1.03%
$152
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2019
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 1978–2019 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
2010–2019
1.78%
17.2%
$392
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $250 by
1998, on its way to $392 in 2019; 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: 2019
In 2019, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $392; the year's average CPI of 255.657 is the level
behind every 2019 figure on this page.
2019 was the last ordinary year before COVID-19. Consumer prices rose 1.8%,
slightly under the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, with gasoline averaging
$2.60 a gallon. Median household income jumped to $68,703, the highest on
record up to that point, and the median new home sold for about $328,000. A
first-class stamp rose to 55 cents.
The Fed reversed course. After four increases in 2018, it cut rates three
times, to 1.50–1.75%, citing slower global growth, trade tensions, and low
inflation. In July the expansion that began in June 2009 became the longest in
U.S. records, and in August the yield curve briefly inverted, a signal
investors read as a recession warning.
For workers at the bottom of the pay scale, 2019 marked a milestone of a
different kind. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and reached its tenth
year without an increase, the longest gap since the wage was first set. Because
prices had climbed about 19% since it was last raised in 2009, its buying power
was lower than at any point in that span.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2019: $100 is worth $392 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2019/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2019. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2019/