$100 in 1978 is worth $397 in 2020,
because prices increased 296.9% over that period, an average of
3.34% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$397
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
296.9%
Average inflation rate
3.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$397
Price difference ($100 base)
$297
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1978 → 2020
$397
$100 in 2020 → 1978
$25.19
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2020
Between 1978 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 296.9%, which works out to an average of
3.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.25 buys in 2020: the 1978 dollar
lost 74.8% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 2020 at the same ratio, 3.97: $1,000 becomes
$3,969, and $10,000 becomes $39,695.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2020
$1.00
$3.97
$5.00
$19.85
$10.00
$39.69
$20.00
$79.39
$50.00
$198
$100
$397
$500
$1,985
$1,000
$3,969
$5,000
$19,847
$10,000
$39,695
$100,000
$396,949
$1,000,000
$3,969,494
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2020
Between 1978 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 739.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 45.1%, against 296.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.34%
$397
Medical care
5.20%
$840
Housing
3.57%
$436
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.41%
$409
Energy
3.20%
$375
Food
3.17%
$371
Transportation
2.86%
$326
Apparel
0.89%
$145
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 12.42% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1978–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$397
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $250 by
1998, on its way to $397 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $397; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2020: $100 is worth $397 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2020/