$100 in 1982 is worth $103 in 1983,
because prices increased 3.2% over that period, an average of
3.21% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$103
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3.2%
Average inflation rate
3.21% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$103
Price difference ($100 base)
$3.21
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1982 → 1983
$103
$100 in 1983 → 1982
$96.89
What happened to prices between 1982 and 1983
Between 1982 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.2%, which works out to an average of
3.21% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.97 buys in 1983: the 1982 dollar
lost 3.1% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
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.
Every 1982 amount converts to 1983 at the same ratio, 1.03: $1,000 becomes
$1,032, and $10,000 becomes $10,321.
Amount in 1982
Value in 1983
$1.00
$1.03
$5.00
$5.16
$10.00
$10.32
$20.00
$20.64
$50.00
$51.61
$100
$103
$500
$516
$1,000
$1,032
$5,000
$5,161
$10,000
$10,321
$100,000
$103,212
$1,000,000
$1,032,124
Inflation by spending category, 1982–1983
Between 1982 and 1983, medical care rose the most, up 8.8%, while energy rose the least, up 0.7%, against 3.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.21%
$103
Medical care
8.76%
$109
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.97%
$104
Housing
2.68%
$103
Apparel
2.45%
$102
Transportation
2.37%
$102
Food
2.05%
$102
Energy
0.71%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1982: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1982
$100 from 1982grew to $103 by 1983; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $103; 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 1982 to 1983: $100 is worth $103 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1983/