$100 in 1982 is worth $150 in 1993,
because prices increased 49.7% over that period, an average of
3.74% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$150
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
49.7%
Average inflation rate
3.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$150
Price difference ($100 base)
$49.74
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1982 → 1993
$150
$100 in 1993 → 1982
$66.78
What happened to prices between 1982 and 1993
Between 1982 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 49.7%, which works out to an average of
3.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.67 buys in 1993: the 1982 dollar
lost 33.2% of its purchasing power over
these 11 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 1993 at the same ratio, 1.50: $1,000 becomes
$1,497, and $10,000 becomes $14,974.
Amount in 1982
Value in 1993
$1.00
$1.50
$5.00
$7.49
$10.00
$14.97
$20.00
$29.95
$50.00
$74.87
$100
$150
$500
$749
$1,000
$1,497
$5,000
$7,487
$10,000
$14,974
$100,000
$149,741
$1,000,000
$1,497,409
Inflation by spending category, 1982–1993
Between 1982 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 117.7%, while energy rose the least, up 5.0%, against 49.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.74%
$150
Medical care
7.33%
$218
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.30%
$159
Housing
3.48%
$146
Food
3.41%
$145
Apparel
2.88%
$137
Transportation
2.73%
$134
Energy
0.45%
$105
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1982: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1982 to 1993
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.86% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.40% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1982–1993 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1982, at end
1982–1990
3.86%
35.4%
$135
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$150
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1982
$100 from 1982 had already become $118 by
1987, on its way to $150 in 1993; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.4% in 1990, and the smallest rise was 1.9% in 1986.
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $150; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 1993: $100 is worth $150 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1993/