$100 in 1982 is worth $154 in 1994,
because prices increased 53.6% over that period, an average of
3.64% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$154
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
53.6%
Average inflation rate
3.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$154
Price difference ($100 base)
$53.58
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1982 → 1994
$154
$100 in 1994 → 1982
$65.11
What happened to prices between 1982 and 1994
Between 1982 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 53.6%, which works out to an average of
3.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1994: the 1982 dollar
lost 34.9% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1994 at the same ratio, 1.54: $1,000 becomes
$1,536, and $10,000 becomes $15,358.
Amount in 1982
Value in 1994
$1.00
$1.54
$5.00
$7.68
$10.00
$15.36
$20.00
$30.72
$50.00
$76.79
$100
$154
$500
$768
$1,000
$1,536
$5,000
$7,679
$10,000
$15,358
$100,000
$153,575
$1,000,000
$1,535,751
Inflation by spending category, 1982–1994
Between 1982 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 128.1%, while energy rose the least, up 5.4%, against 53.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.64%
$154
Medical care
7.11%
$228
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.17%
$163
Housing
3.40%
$149
Food
3.33%
$148
Transportation
2.75%
$138
Apparel
2.62%
$136
Energy
0.44%
$105
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1982: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1982 to 1994
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.86% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.19% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1982–1994 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1982, at end
1982–1990
3.86%
35.4%
$135
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$154
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1982
$100 from 1982 had already become $123 by
1988, on its way to $154 in 1994; 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 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $154; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 1994: $100 is worth $154 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1994/