$100 in 1980 is worth $260 in 2009,
because prices increased 160.4% over that period, an average of
3.35% a year.
$100 in 1980 has
the same buying power as
$260
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
160.4%
Average inflation rate
3.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$260
Price difference ($100 base)
$160
CPI in 1980
82.4
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1980 → 2009
$260
$100 in 2009 → 1980
$38.41
What happened to prices between 1980 and 2009
Between 1980 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 82.4 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 160.4%, which works out to an average of
3.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1980 bought what
$0.38 buys in 2009: the 1980 dollar
lost 61.6% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 2009 at the same ratio, 2.60: $1,000 becomes
$2,604, and $10,000 becomes $26,036.
Amount in 1980
Value in 2009
$1.00
$2.60
$5.00
$13.02
$10.00
$26.04
$20.00
$52.07
$50.00
$130
$100
$260
$500
$1,302
$1,000
$2,604
$5,000
$13,018
$10,000
$26,036
$100,000
$260,360
$1,000,000
$2,603,604
Inflation by spending category, 1980–2009
Between 1980 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 401.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 32.1%, against 160.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1980
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1980 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.35%
$260
Medical care
5.72%
$501
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.50%
$271
Housing
3.45%
$268
Food
3.23%
$251
Energy
2.83%
$225
Transportation
2.69%
$216
Apparel
0.96%
$132
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1980: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1980 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 4.72% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1980–2009 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1980, at end
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$159
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$209
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$260
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1980
$100 from 1980 had already become $180 by
1994, on its way to $260 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1980 had the buying
power of $260; 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 1980 to 2009: $100 is worth $260 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1980 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-2009/