$100 in 1982 is worth $123 in 1988,
because prices increased 22.6% over that period, an average of
3.45% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$123
in 1988
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
22.6%
Average inflation rate
3.45% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$123
Price difference ($100 base)
$22.59
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 1988
118.3
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 1988
4.14%
$100 in 1982 → 1988
$123
$100 in 1988 → 1982
$81.57
What happened to prices between 1982 and 1988
Between 1982 and 1988, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 118.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 22.6%, which works out to an average of
3.45% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.82 buys in 1988: the 1982 dollar
lost 18.4% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1988 at the same ratio, 1.23: $1,000 becomes
$1,226, and $10,000 becomes $12,259.
Amount in 1982
Value in 1988
$1.00
$1.23
$5.00
$6.13
$10.00
$12.26
$20.00
$24.52
$50.00
$61.30
$100
$123
$500
$613
$1,000
$1,226
$5,000
$6,130
$10,000
$12,259
$100,000
$122,591
$1,000,000
$1,225,907
Inflation by spending category, 1982–1988
Between 1982 and 1988, medical care rose the most, up 49.8%, while energy fell 10.0%, against 22.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 1988, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.45%
$123
Medical care
6.97%
$150
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.31%
$129
Housing
3.41%
$122
Food
3.28%
$121
Apparel
2.80%
$118
Transportation
1.92%
$112
Energy
-1.74%
$90.02
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 $112 by
1985, on its way to $123 in 1988; 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 1988, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $123; the year's average CPI of 118.3 is the level
behind every 1988 figure on this page.
By 1988, the economic expansion that began in the ashes of the 1981-82
recession was in its sixth year, and the Federal Reserve was watching for
signs it had run too long. Inflation rose to 4.1%, up from 3.6% the year
before, while unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1974. Alan
Greenspan’s Fed responded by raising the federal funds rate through the
year, from about 6.5% to 8.5%, trying to cool demand before prices
accelerated the way they had in the 1970s. Households still felt the
difference between this expansion and the last one: gas held near 90 cents
a gallon, almost exactly its 1987 price, and median household income rose
to roughly $27,200. The one price that moved was postage, which rose from
22 to 25 cents in April, the fourth increase of the decade but a far
gentler pace than the string of increases in the late 1970s and early
1980s. In November, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency on
the strength of the expansion, promising in his nomination speech to hold
the line on taxes. Both the boom and that pledge would run into trouble
within two years, as the Fed’s rate increases helped tip the economy toward
the 1990-91 recession.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 1988: $100 is worth $123 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1988/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 1988. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1988/