$100 in 1979 is worth $199 in 1993,
because prices increased 99.0% over that period, an average of
5.04% a year.
$100 in 1979 has
the same buying power as
$199
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
99.0%
Average inflation rate
5.04% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$199
Price difference ($100 base)
$99.04
CPI in 1979
72.6
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1979 → 1993
$199
$100 in 1993 → 1979
$50.24
What happened to prices between 1979 and 1993
Between 1979 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 72.6 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 99.0%, which works out to an average of
5.04% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1979 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1993: the 1979 dollar
lost 49.8% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1993 at the same ratio, 1.99: $1,000 becomes
$1,990, and $10,000 becomes $19,904.
Amount in 1979
Value in 1993
$1.00
$1.99
$5.00
$9.95
$10.00
$19.90
$20.00
$39.81
$50.00
$99.52
$100
$199
$500
$995
$1,000
$1,990
$5,000
$9,952
$10,000
$19,904
$100,000
$199,036
$1,000,000
$1,990,358
Inflation by spending category, 1979–1993
Between 1979 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 198.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 57.5%, against 99.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1979
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1979 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.04%
$199
Medical care
8.12%
$298
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.50%
$212
Housing
5.13%
$201
Transportation
4.49%
$185
Food
4.14%
$176
Energy
3.35%
$159
Apparel
3.30%
$157
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1979: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1979 to 1993
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 13.50% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.40% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1979–1993 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1979, at end
1979–1980
13.50%
13.5%
$113
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$180
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$199
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1979
$100 from 1979 had already become $151 by
1986, on its way to $199 in 1993; 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 1.9% in 1986.
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1979 had the buying
power of $199; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1979 to 1993: $100 is worth $199 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1979-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1979 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1979-to-1993/