$100 in 1980 is worth $175 in 1993,
because prices increased 75.4% over that period, an average of
4.42% a year.
$100 in 1980 has
the same buying power as
$175
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
75.4%
Average inflation rate
4.42% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$175
Price difference ($100 base)
$75.36
CPI in 1980
82.4
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1980 → 1993
$175
$100 in 1993 → 1980
$57.02
What happened to prices between 1980 and 1993
Between 1980 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 82.4 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 75.4%, which works out to an average of
4.42% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1980 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1993: the 1980 dollar
lost 43.0% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1993 at the same ratio, 1.75: $1,000 becomes
$1,754, and $10,000 becomes $17,536.
Amount in 1980
Value in 1993
$1.00
$1.75
$5.00
$8.77
$10.00
$17.54
$20.00
$35.07
$50.00
$87.68
$100
$175
$500
$877
$1,000
$1,754
$5,000
$8,768
$10,000
$17,536
$100,000
$175,364
$1,000,000
$1,753,641
Inflation by spending category, 1980–1993
Between 1980 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 168.9%, while energy rose the least, up 21.2%, against 75.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1980
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1980 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.42%
$175
Medical care
7.91%
$269
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.99%
$188
Housing
4.36%
$174
Food
3.80%
$162
Transportation
3.53%
$157
Apparel
3.01%
$147
Energy
1.49%
$121
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1980: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1980 to 1993
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 4.72% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.40% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1980–1993 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1980, at end
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$159
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$175
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1980
$100 from 1980 had already become $133 by
1986, on its way to $175 in 1993; 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 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1980 had the buying
power of $175; 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 1980 to 1993: $100 is worth $175 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1980 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-1993/