Between 1980 and 2015, the Consumer Price Index went from 82.4 to 237.017.
Cumulatively, prices increased 187.6%, which works out to an average of
3.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1980 bought what
$0.35 buys in 2015.
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 2015, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1980 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.06%
$288
Medical care
5.23%
$596
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.19%
$300
Housing
3.12%
$294
Food
3.04%
$285
Transportation
2.53%
$240
Energy
2.48%
$236
Apparel
0.94%
$139
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1980: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
Cite this page
MLA: “Inflation from 1980 to 2015: $100 is worth $288 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-2015/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1980 to 2015. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1980-to-2015/