$100 in 1981 is worth $106 in 1982,
because prices increased 6.2% over that period, an average of
6.16% a year.
$100 in 1981 has
the same buying power as
$106
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
6.2%
Average inflation rate
6.16% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$106
Price difference ($100 base)
$6.16
CPI in 1981
90.9
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1981
10.32%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1981 → 1982
$106
$100 in 1982 → 1981
$94.20
What happened to prices between 1981 and 1982
Between 1981 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 90.9 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 6.2%, which works out to an average of
6.16% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1981 bought what
$0.94 buys in 1982: the 1981 dollar
lost 5.8% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
1981 was the year the inflation fever finally broke, at an extraordinary price.
Consumer prices rose 10.3%, the second year of back-to-back double-digit
inflation and the last time the U.S. would see one. To end it, Paul Volcker’s
Federal Reserve drove its policy rate above 19% and let borrowing costs go
where they may: a 30-year mortgage cost more than 18% by autumn, car loans and
business credit froze, and homebuilders mailed the Fed two-by-fours in protest.
The squeeze tipped the economy into recession in July, the deep 1981–82
downturn that would push unemployment past 10%. But it worked. Inflation fell
by nearly half within a year and to under 4% by 1983, the disinflation that
defined the following two decades. Even the price of mailing a letter told the
year’s story: postage went up twice in eight months.
Every 1981 amount converts to 1982 at the same ratio, 1.06: $1,000 becomes
$1,062, and $10,000 becomes $10,616.
Amount in 1981
Value in 1982
$1.00
$1.06
$5.00
$5.31
$10.00
$10.62
$20.00
$21.23
$50.00
$53.08
$100
$106
$500
$531
$1,000
$1,062
$5,000
$5,308
$10,000
$10,616
$100,000
$106,161
$1,000,000
$1,061,606
Inflation by spending category, 1981–1982
Between 1981 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 11.6%, while energy rose the least, up 1.5%, against 6.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1981
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1981 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.16%
$106
Medical care
11.58%
$112
Core (all items less food & energy)
7.40%
$107
Housing
7.19%
$107
Transportation
4.08%
$104
Food
4.06%
$104
Apparel
2.62%
$103
Energy
1.54%
$102
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1981: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1981
$100 from 1981grew to $106 by 1982; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1981 had the buying
power of $106; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1981 to 1982: $100 is worth $106 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1981-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1981 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1981-to-1982/