$100 in 1981 is worth $110 in 1983,
because prices increased 9.6% over that period, an average of
4.68% a year.
$100 in 1981 has
the same buying power as
$110
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
9.6%
Average inflation rate
4.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$110
Price difference ($100 base)
$9.57
CPI in 1981
90.9
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1981
10.32%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1981 → 1983
$110
$100 in 1983 → 1981
$91.27
What happened to prices between 1981 and 1983
Between 1981 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 90.9 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 9.6%, which works out to an average of
4.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1981 bought what
$0.91 buys in 1983: the 1981 dollar
lost 8.7% of its purchasing power over
these 2 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 1983 at the same ratio, 1.10: $1,000 becomes
$1,096, and $10,000 becomes $10,957.
Amount in 1981
Value in 1983
$1.00
$1.10
$5.00
$5.48
$10.00
$10.96
$20.00
$21.91
$50.00
$54.79
$100
$110
$500
$548
$1,000
$1,096
$5,000
$5,479
$10,000
$10,957
$100,000
$109,571
$1,000,000
$1,095,710
Inflation by spending category, 1981–1983
Between 1981 and 1983, medical care rose the most, up 21.4%, while energy rose the least, up 2.3%, against 9.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1981
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1981 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.68%
$110
Medical care
10.16%
$121
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.67%
$112
Housing
4.91%
$110
Transportation
3.22%
$107
Food
3.05%
$106
Apparel
2.54%
$105
Energy
1.12%
$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 1981 had already become $106 by
1982, on its way to $110 in 1983; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 6.2% in 1982, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1983.
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1981 had the buying
power of $110; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1981 to 1983: $100 is worth $110 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1981-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1981 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1981-to-1983/