$100 in 1982 is worth $163 in 1996,
because prices increased 62.6% over that period, an average of
3.53% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$163
in 1996
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
62.6%
Average inflation rate
3.53% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$163
Price difference ($100 base)
$62.59
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 1996
156.9
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 1996
2.95%
$100 in 1982 → 1996
$163
$100 in 1996 → 1982
$61.50
What happened to prices between 1982 and 1996
Between 1982 and 1996, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 156.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 62.6%, which works out to an average of
3.53% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.62 buys in 1996: the 1982 dollar
lost 38.5% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1996 at the same ratio, 1.63: $1,000 becomes
$1,626, and $10,000 becomes $16,259.
Amount in 1982
Value in 1996
$1.00
$1.63
$5.00
$8.13
$10.00
$16.26
$20.00
$32.52
$50.00
$81.30
$100
$163
$500
$813
$1,000
$1,626
$5,000
$8,130
$10,000
$16,259
$100,000
$162,591
$1,000,000
$1,625,907
Inflation by spending category, 1982–1996
Between 1982 and 1996, medical care rose the most, up 146.7%, while energy rose the least, up 11.0%, against 62.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 1996, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.53%
$163
Medical care
6.66%
$247
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.99%
$173
Housing
3.31%
$158
Food
3.29%
$157
Transportation
2.81%
$147
Apparel
2.15%
$135
Energy
0.75%
$111
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1982: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1982 to 1996
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.86% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.09% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1982–1996 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1982, at end
1982–1990
3.86%
35.4%
$135
1990–1996
3.09%
20.0%
$163
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1982
$100 from 1982 had already become $128 by
1989, on its way to $163 in 1996; 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 1996, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $163; the year's average CPI of 156.9 is the level
behind every 1996 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $35,500 in 1996, gas averaged $1.23 a gallon, up noticeably
from the mid-decade lull, and a new home cost roughly $140,000. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the
year, ticking back up from 1995 as energy prices firmed. Washington passed two of the decade’s
more consequential laws that year: in February, the Telecommunications Act rewrote the rules for
phone, cable, and broadcast media for the first time since 1934, opening local markets to
competition and easing ownership limits; in August, a welfare overhaul ended the federal
guarantee of cash assistance, replacing it with block grants to states and time limits on
benefits. In October, the federal minimum wage rose to $4.75 an hour, its first increase in five
years and the opening step of a two-part law that would take it to $5.15 the following
September. Two sweeping new laws and a minimum wage finally on the move again made 1996 a year
that changed more about how the economy was governed than about how fast prices moved.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 1996: $100 is worth $163 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1996/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 1996. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-1996/