$100 in 1979 is worth $356 in 2020,
because prices increased 256.5% over that period, an average of
3.15% a year.
$100 in 1979 has
the same buying power as
$356
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
256.5%
Average inflation rate
3.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$356
Price difference ($100 base)
$256
CPI in 1979
72.6
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1979 → 2020
$356
$100 in 2020 → 1979
$28.05
What happened to prices between 1979 and 2020
Between 1979 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 72.6 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 256.5%, which works out to an average of
3.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1979 bought what
$0.28 buys in 2020: the 1979 dollar
lost 71.9% of its purchasing power over
these 41 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 2020 at the same ratio, 3.56: $1,000 becomes
$3,565, and $10,000 becomes $35,649.
Amount in 1979
Value in 2020
$1.00
$3.56
$5.00
$17.82
$10.00
$35.65
$20.00
$71.30
$50.00
$178
$100
$356
$500
$1,782
$1,000
$3,565
$5,000
$17,824
$10,000
$35,649
$100,000
$356,489
$1,000,000
$3,564,890
Inflation by spending category, 1979–2020
Between 1979 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 668.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 39.1%, against 256.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1979
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1979 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.15%
$356
Medical care
5.10%
$769
Housing
3.36%
$388
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.26%
$372
Food
2.99%
$334
Energy
2.71%
$300
Transportation
2.59%
$286
Apparel
0.81%
$139
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1979: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1979 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 13.50% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1979–2020 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$300
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$356
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1979
$100 from 1979 had already become $229 by
1999, on its way to $356 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 1979 had the buying
power of $356; 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 1979 to 2020: $100 is worth $356 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1979-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1979 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1979-to-2020/