$100 in 1979 is worth $296 in 2009,
because prices increased 195.5% over that period, an average of
3.68% a year.
$100 in 1979 has
the same buying power as
$296
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
195.5%
Average inflation rate
3.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$296
Price difference ($100 base)
$196
CPI in 1979
72.6
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1979 → 2009
$296
$100 in 2009 → 1979
$33.84
What happened to prices between 1979 and 2009
Between 1979 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 72.6 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 195.5%, which works out to an average of
3.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1979 bought what
$0.34 buys in 2009: the 1979 dollar
lost 66.2% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 2009 at the same ratio, 2.96: $1,000 becomes
$2,955, and $10,000 becomes $29,551.
Amount in 1979
Value in 2009
$1.00
$2.96
$5.00
$14.78
$10.00
$29.55
$20.00
$59.10
$50.00
$148
$100
$296
$500
$1,478
$1,000
$2,955
$5,000
$14,775
$10,000
$29,551
$100,000
$295,506
$1,000,000
$2,955,055
Inflation by spending category, 1979–2009
Between 1979 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 456.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 41.4%, against 195.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1979
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1979 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.68%
$296
Medical care
5.89%
$556
Housing
3.84%
$310
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.79%
$305
Energy
3.66%
$294
Food
3.40%
$273
Transportation
3.16%
$254
Apparel
1.16%
$141
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1979: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1979 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 13.50% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1979–2009 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$237
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$296
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1979
$100 from 1979 had already become $204 by
1994, on its way to $296 in 2009; 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.
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1979 had the buying
power of $296; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1979 to 2009: $100 is worth $296 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1979-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1979 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1979-to-2009/