$100 in 1982 is worth $108 in 1984,
because prices increased 7.7% over that period, an average of
3.76% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$108
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
7.7%
Average inflation rate
3.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$108
Price difference ($100 base)
$7.67
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1982 → 1984
$108
$100 in 1984 → 1982
$92.88
What happened to prices between 1982 and 1984
Between 1982 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 7.7%, which works out to an average of
3.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.93 buys in 1984: the 1982 dollar
lost 7.1% of its purchasing power over
these 2 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 1984 at the same ratio, 1.08: $1,000 becomes
$1,077, and $10,000 becomes $10,767.
Amount in 1982
Value in 1984
$1.00
$1.08
$5.00
$5.38
$10.00
$10.77
$20.00
$21.53
$50.00
$53.83
$100
$108
$500
$538
$1,000
$1,077
$5,000
$5,383
$10,000
$10,767
$100,000
$107,668
$1,000,000
$1,076,684
Inflation by spending category, 1982–1984
Between 1982 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 15.5%, while energy rose the least, up 1.7%, against 7.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.76%
$108
Medical care
7.45%
$115
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.49%
$109
Housing
3.40%
$107
Transportation
3.40%
$107
Food
2.93%
$106
Apparel
2.17%
$104
Energy
0.85%
$102
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 1982 had already become $103 by
1983, on its way to $108 in 1984; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 4.3% in 1984, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1983.
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $108; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 1984: $100 is worth $108 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1984/