$100 in 1979 is worth $143 in 1984,
because prices increased 43.1% over that period, an average of
7.43% a year.
$100 in 1979 has
the same buying power as
$143
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
43.1%
Average inflation rate
7.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$143
Price difference ($100 base)
$43.11
CPI in 1979
72.6
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1979 → 1984
$143
$100 in 1984 → 1979
$69.87
What happened to prices between 1979 and 1984
Between 1979 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 72.6 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 43.1%, which works out to an average of
7.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1979 bought what
$0.70 buys in 1984: the 1979 dollar
lost 30.1% of its purchasing power over
these 5 years.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
Every 1979 amount converts to 1984 at the same ratio, 1.43: $1,000 becomes
$1,431, and $10,000 becomes $14,311.
Amount in 1979
Value in 1984
$1.00
$1.43
$5.00
$7.16
$10.00
$14.31
$20.00
$28.62
$50.00
$71.56
$100
$143
$500
$716
$1,000
$1,431
$5,000
$7,156
$10,000
$14,311
$100,000
$143,113
$1,000,000
$1,431,129
Inflation by spending category, 1979–1984
Between 1979 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 58.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 20.3%, against 43.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1979
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1979 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.43%
$143
Medical care
9.61%
$158
Energy
8.96%
$154
Housing
8.13%
$148
Transportation
8.02%
$147
Core (all items less food & energy)
7.79%
$145
Food
5.25%
$129
Apparel
3.76%
$120
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1979: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1979 to 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 13.50% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (5.97% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1979–1984 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1979, at end
1979–1980
13.50%
13.5%
$113
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$143
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1979
$100 from 1979 had already become $125 by
1981, on its way to $143 in 1984; 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 the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1983.
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1979 had the buying
power of $143; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1979 to 1984: $100 is worth $143 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1979-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1979 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1979-to-1984/