$100 in 1980 is worth $273 in 2011,
because prices increased 173.0% over that period, an average of
3.29% a year.
$100 in 1980 has
the same buying power as
$273
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
173.0%
Average inflation rate
3.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$273
Price difference ($100 base)
$173
CPI in 1980
82.4
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1980 → 2011
$273
$100 in 2011 → 1980
$36.63
What happened to prices between 1980 and 2011
Between 1980 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 82.4 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 173.0%, which works out to an average of
3.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1980 bought what
$0.37 buys in 2011: the 1980 dollar
lost 63.4% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 2011 at the same ratio, 2.73: $1,000 becomes
$2,730, and $10,000 becomes $27,298.
Amount in 1980
Value in 2011
$1.00
$2.73
$5.00
$13.65
$10.00
$27.30
$20.00
$54.60
$50.00
$136
$100
$273
$500
$1,365
$1,000
$2,730
$5,000
$13,649
$10,000
$27,298
$100,000
$272,984
$1,000,000
$2,729,842
Inflation by spending category, 1980–2011
Between 1980 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 434.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 34.3%, against 173.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1980
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1980 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.29%
$273
Medical care
5.56%
$534
Energy
3.42%
$284
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.36%
$278
Housing
3.26%
$270
Food
3.16%
$262
Transportation
3.07%
$256
Apparel
0.96%
$134
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1980: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1980 to 2011
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 4.72% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1980–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$265
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$273
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1980
$100 from 1980 had already become $190 by
1996, on its way to $273 in 2011; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1980 had the buying
power of $273; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1980 to 2011: $100 is worth $273 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1980 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-2011/