Between 1980 and 1990, the Consumer Price Index went from 82.4 to 130.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 58.6%, which works out to an average of
4.72% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1980 bought what
$0.63 buys in 1990.
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.
The headline number is an average. Individual categories moved very differently over this
period. Here is what $100 of 1980 spending costs in 1990, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1980 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.72%
$159
Medical care
8.07%
$217
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.31%
$168
Housing
4.71%
$158
Food
4.31%
$153
Transportation
3.79%
$145
Apparel
3.16%
$137
Energy
1.73%
$119
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1980: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
In 1990, the median U.S. household earned about $29,900, gas averaged $1.15 a
gallon, and mailing a letter cost a quarter. Inflation ran hot at 5.4% for the
year, its highest rate since 1982, pushed up by an oil shock after Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait, and the economy tipped into recession that summer. It was
the last gasp of elevated inflation before the long calm of the 1990s.
MLA: “Inflation from 1980 to 1990: $100 is worth $159 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-1990/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1980 to 1990. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-1990/