$100 in 1982 is worth $268 in 2020,
because prices increased 168.2% over that period, an average of
2.63% a year.
$100 in 1982 has
the same buying power as
$268
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
168.2%
Average inflation rate
2.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$268
Price difference ($100 base)
$168
CPI in 1982
96.5
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1982 → 2020
$268
$100 in 2020 → 1982
$37.29
What happened to prices between 1982 and 2020
Between 1982 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 96.5 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 168.2%, which works out to an average of
2.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1982 bought what
$0.37 buys in 2020: the 1982 dollar
lost 62.7% of its purchasing power over
these 38 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 2020 at the same ratio, 2.68: $1,000 becomes
$2,682, and $10,000 becomes $26,820.
Amount in 1982
Value in 2020
$1.00
$2.68
$5.00
$13.41
$10.00
$26.82
$20.00
$53.64
$50.00
$134
$100
$268
$500
$1,341
$1,000
$2,682
$5,000
$13,410
$10,000
$26,820
$100,000
$268,198
$1,000,000
$2,681,979
Inflation by spending category, 1982–2020
Between 1982 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 460.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 20.7%, against 168.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1982
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1982 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.63%
$268
Medical care
4.64%
$561
Housing
2.75%
$280
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.74%
$279
Food
2.69%
$274
Transportation
1.94%
$208
Energy
1.82%
$199
Apparel
0.50%
$121
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1982: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1982 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.86% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1982–2020 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$226
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$268
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1982
$100 from 1982 had already become $178 by
2000, on its way to $268 in 2020; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1982 had the buying
power of $268; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1982 to 2020: $100 is worth $268 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1982 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1982-to-2020/