$100 in 1982 is worth $196 in 2004,
because prices increased 95.8% over that period, an average of
3.10% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$196
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
95.8%
Average inflation rate
3.10% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$196
Price difference ($100 base)
$95.75
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1982 → 2004
$196
$100 in 2004 → 1982
$51.09
What happened to prices between 1982 and 2004
Between 1982 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 95.8%, which works out to an average of
3.10% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.51 buys in 2004: the 1982 dollar
lost 48.9% of its purchasing power over
these 22 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 2004 at the same ratio, 1.96: $1,000 becomes
$1,958, and $10,000 becomes $19,575.
Amount in 1982
Value in 2004
$1.00
$1.96
$5.00
$9.79
$10.00
$19.58
$20.00
$39.15
$50.00
$97.88
$100
$196
$500
$979
$1,000
$1,958
$5,000
$9,788
$10,000
$19,575
$100,000
$195,751
$1,000,000
$1,957,513
Inflation by spending category, 1982–2004
Between 1982 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 235.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 23.1%, against 95.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.10%
$196
Medical care
5.65%
$335
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.32%
$205
Housing
3.10%
$196
Food
2.99%
$191
Transportation
2.39%
$168
Energy
1.94%
$153
Apparel
0.95%
$123
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1982: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1982 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.86% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1982–2004 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
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$196
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1982
$100 from 1982 had already become $150 by
1993, on its way to $196 in 2004; 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 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $196; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 2004: $100 is worth $196 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-2004/