$100 in 1982 is worth $114 in 1986,
because prices increased 13.6% over that period, an average of
3.23% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$114
in 1986
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
13.6%
Average inflation rate
3.23% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$114
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.58
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 1986
109.6
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 1986
1.86%
$100 in 1982 → 1986
$114
$100 in 1986 → 1982
$88.05
What happened to prices between 1982 and 1986
Between 1982 and 1986, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 109.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 13.6%, which works out to an average of
3.23% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1986: the 1982 dollar
lost 12.0% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1986 at the same ratio, 1.14: $1,000 becomes
$1,136, and $10,000 becomes $11,358.
Amount in 1982
Value in 1986
$1.00
$1.14
$5.00
$5.68
$10.00
$11.36
$20.00
$22.72
$50.00
$56.79
$100
$114
$500
$568
$1,000
$1,136
$5,000
$5,679
$10,000
$11,358
$100,000
$113,575
$1,000,000
$1,135,751
Inflation by spending category, 1982–1986
Between 1982 and 1986, medical care rose the most, up 31.9%, while energy fell 11.1%, against 13.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 1986, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.23%
$114
Medical care
7.17%
$132
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.33%
$118
Housing
3.43%
$114
Food
2.85%
$112
Apparel
2.01%
$108
Transportation
1.34%
$105
Energy
-2.90%
$88.91
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 $108 by
1984, on its way to $114 in 1986; 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 1.9% in 1986.
In 1986, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $114; the year's average CPI of 109.6 is the level
behind every 1986 figure on this page.
1986 delivered the decade’s biggest one-year drop in inflation, and it came
almost entirely from a single source: oil. Saudi Arabia abandoned its policy
of restraining output to prop up prices, and world crude collapsed from
about $27 a barrel to under $10 by midyear. Gasoline, which had averaged
$1.12 a gallon in 1985, fell to 86 cents. With energy costs plunging,
headline CPI inflation for the year came in at just 1.9%, the lowest annual
rate since 1965 and a striking bookend to 1980’s 13.5% peak. The relief was
uneven: prices for most goods and services outside energy kept rising at a
moderate pace, so households that didn’t drive much or heat with oil felt
less of the difference. In October, Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of
1986, a bipartisan overhaul that cut the top individual income tax rate from
50% to 28% while closing many deductions and shelters, the broadest rewrite
of the federal tax code since World War II. Between cheap gas and falling
interest rates, 1986 read like proof that the inflationary 1970s were a
closed chapter, six years after the U.S. economy had felt anything but
calm.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 1986: $100 is worth $114 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1986/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 1986. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1986/