$100 in 1980 is worth $144 in 1988,
because prices increased 43.6% over that period, an average of
4.62% a year.
$100 in 1980 has
the same buying power as
$144
in 1988
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
43.6%
Average inflation rate
4.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$144
Price difference ($100 base)
$43.57
CPI in 1980
82.4
CPI in 1988
118.3
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
Inflation in 1988
4.14%
$100 in 1980 → 1988
$144
$100 in 1988 → 1980
$69.65
What happened to prices between 1980 and 1988
Between 1980 and 1988, the Consumer Price Index went from 82.4 to 118.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 43.6%, which works out to an average of
4.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1980 bought what
$0.70 buys in 1988: the 1980 dollar
lost 30.3% of its purchasing power over
these 8 years.
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
Every 1980 amount converts to 1988 at the same ratio, 1.44: $1,000 becomes
$1,436, and $10,000 becomes $14,357.
Amount in 1980
Value in 1988
$1.00
$1.44
$5.00
$7.18
$10.00
$14.36
$20.00
$28.71
$50.00
$71.78
$100
$144
$500
$718
$1,000
$1,436
$5,000
$7,178
$10,000
$14,357
$100,000
$143,568
$1,000,000
$1,435,680
Inflation by spending category, 1980–1988
Between 1980 and 1988, medical care rose the most, up 85.0%, while energy rose the least, up 3.8%, against 43.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1980
spending costs in 1988, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1980 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.62%
$144
Medical care
8.00%
$185
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.44%
$153
Housing
4.85%
$146
Food
3.94%
$136
Transportation
3.41%
$131
Apparel
3.03%
$127
Energy
0.47%
$104
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1980: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1980
$100 from 1980 had already become $126 by
1984, on its way to $144 in 1988; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.3% in 1981, and the smallest rise was 1.9% in 1986.
In 1988, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1980 had the buying
power of $144; the year's average CPI of 118.3 is the level
behind every 1988 figure on this page.
By 1988, the economic expansion that began in the ashes of the 1981-82
recession was in its sixth year, and the Federal Reserve was watching for
signs it had run too long. Inflation rose to 4.1%, up from 3.6% the year
before, while unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1974. Alan
Greenspan’s Fed responded by raising the federal funds rate through the
year, from about 6.5% to 8.5%, trying to cool demand before prices
accelerated the way they had in the 1970s. Households still felt the
difference between this expansion and the last one: gas held near 90 cents
a gallon, almost exactly its 1987 price, and median household income rose
to roughly $27,200. The one price that moved was postage, which rose from
22 to 25 cents in April, the fourth increase of the decade but a far
gentler pace than the string of increases in the late 1970s and early
1980s. In November, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency on
the strength of the expansion, promising in his nomination speech to hold
the line on taxes. Both the boom and that pledge would run into trouble
within two years, as the Fed’s rate increases helped tip the economy toward
the 1990-91 recession.
MLA: “Inflation from 1980 to 1988: $100 is worth $144 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-1988/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1980 to 1988. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-1988/