$100 in 1983 is worth $260 in 2020,
because prices increased 159.9% over that period, an average of
2.61% a year.
$100 in 1983 has
the same buying power as
$260
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
159.9%
Average inflation rate
2.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$260
Price difference ($100 base)
$160
CPI in 1983
99.6
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1983 → 2020
$260
$100 in 2020 → 1983
$38.48
What happened to prices between 1983 and 2020
Between 1983 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 99.6 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 159.9%, which works out to an average of
2.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1983 bought what
$0.38 buys in 2020: the 1983 dollar
lost 61.5% of its purchasing power over
these 37 years.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
Every 1983 amount converts to 2020 at the same ratio, 2.60: $1,000 becomes
$2,599, and $10,000 becomes $25,985.
Amount in 1983
Value in 2020
$1.00
$2.60
$5.00
$12.99
$10.00
$25.99
$20.00
$51.97
$50.00
$130
$100
$260
$500
$1,299
$1,000
$2,599
$5,000
$12,993
$10,000
$25,985
$100,000
$259,850
$1,000,000
$2,598,504
Inflation by spending category, 1983–2020
Between 1983 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 415.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 17.8%, against 159.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1983
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1983 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.61%
$260
Medical care
4.53%
$516
Housing
2.75%
$273
Food
2.71%
$269
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.71%
$269
Transportation
1.93%
$203
Energy
1.85%
$197
Apparel
0.44%
$118
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1983: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1983 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.96% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1983–2020 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1983, at end
1983–1990
3.96%
31.2%
$131
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$173
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$219
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$260
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1983
$100 from 1983 had already become $178 by
2001, on its way to $260 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 1983 had the buying
power of $260; 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 1983 to 2020: $100 is worth $260 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1983-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1983 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1983-to-2020/