$100 in 1982 is worth $222 in 2009,
because prices increased 122.3% over that period, an average of
3.00% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$222
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
122.3%
Average inflation rate
3.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$222
Price difference ($100 base)
$122
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1982 → 2009
$222
$100 in 2009 → 1982
$44.98
What happened to prices between 1982 and 2009
Between 1982 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 122.3%, which works out to an average of
3.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.45 buys in 2009: the 1982 dollar
lost 55.0% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 2009 at the same ratio, 2.22: $1,000 becomes
$2,223, and $10,000 becomes $22,232.
Amount in 1982
Value in 2009
$1.00
$2.22
$5.00
$11.12
$10.00
$22.23
$20.00
$44.46
$50.00
$111
$100
$222
$500
$1,112
$1,000
$2,223
$5,000
$11,116
$10,000
$22,232
$100,000
$222,318
$1,000,000
$2,223,181
Inflation by spending category, 1982–2009
Between 1982 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 306.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 22.8%, against 122.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.00%
$222
Medical care
5.33%
$406
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.11%
$229
Housing
3.03%
$224
Food
3.03%
$224
Energy
2.50%
$195
Transportation
2.30%
$185
Apparel
0.76%
$123
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1982: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1982 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.86% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1982–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$222
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1982
$100 from 1982 had already become $158 by
1995, on its way to $222 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $222; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 2009: $100 is worth $222 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-2009/