$100 in 1978 is worth $416 in 2021,
because prices increased 315.6% over that period, an average of
3.37% a year.
$100 in 1978 has
the same buying power as
$416
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
315.6%
Average inflation rate
3.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$416
Price difference ($100 base)
$316
CPI in 1978
65.2
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1978 → 2021
$416
$100 in 2021 → 1978
$24.06
What happened to prices between 1978 and 2021
Between 1978 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 65.2 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 315.6%, which works out to an average of
3.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1978 bought what
$0.24 buys in 2021: the 1978 dollar
lost 75.9% of its purchasing power over
these 43 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 2021 at the same ratio, 4.16: $1,000 becomes
$4,156, and $10,000 becomes $41,560.
Amount in 1978
Value in 2021
$1.00
$4.16
$5.00
$20.78
$10.00
$41.56
$20.00
$83.12
$50.00
$208
$100
$416
$500
$2,078
$1,000
$4,156
$5,000
$20,780
$10,000
$41,560
$100,000
$415,598
$1,000,000
$4,155,982
Inflation by spending category, 1978–2021
Between 1978 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 750.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 48.6%, against 315.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1978
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1978 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.37%
$416
Medical care
5.10%
$850
Energy
3.58%
$454
Housing
3.56%
$450
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.41%
$423
Food
3.19%
$386
Transportation
3.11%
$374
Apparel
0.93%
$149
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1978: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1978 to 2021
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 1978–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$416
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1978
$100 from 1978 had already become $264 by
2000, on its way to $416 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1978 had the buying
power of $416; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1978 to 2021: $100 is worth $416 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1978 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1978-to-2021/