$100 in 1982 is worth $191 in 2003,
because prices increased 90.7% over that period, an average of
3.12% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$191
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
90.7%
Average inflation rate
3.12% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$191
Price difference ($100 base)
$90.67
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1982 → 2003
$191
$100 in 2003 → 1982
$52.45
What happened to prices between 1982 and 2003
Between 1982 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 90.7%, which works out to an average of
3.12% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.52 buys in 2003: the 1982 dollar
lost 47.6% of its purchasing power over
these 21 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 2003 at the same ratio, 1.91: $1,000 becomes
$1,907, and $10,000 becomes $19,067.
Amount in 1982
Value in 2003
$1.00
$1.91
$5.00
$9.53
$10.00
$19.07
$20.00
$38.13
$50.00
$95.34
$100
$191
$500
$953
$1,000
$1,907
$5,000
$9,534
$10,000
$19,067
$100,000
$190,674
$1,000,000
$1,906,736
Inflation by spending category, 1982–2003
Between 1982 and 2003, medical care rose the most, up 221.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 23.6%, against 90.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.12%
$191
Medical care
5.71%
$321
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.40%
$202
Housing
3.12%
$191
Food
2.97%
$185
Transportation
2.34%
$162
Energy
1.53%
$138
Apparel
1.01%
$124
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1982: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1982 to 2003
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.86% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.23% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1982–2003 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1982, at end
1982–1990
3.86%
35.4%
$135
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$178
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$191
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1982
$100 from 1982 had already become $145 by
1992, on its way to $191 in 2003; 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 1.6% in 1998.
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $191; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 2003: $100 is worth $191 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-2003/