$100 in 1984 is worth $119 in 1989,
because prices increased 19.3% over that period, an average of
3.60% a year.
$100 in 1984 has
the same buying power as
$119
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
19.3%
Average inflation rate
3.60% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$119
Price difference ($100 base)
$19.35
CPI in 1984
103.9
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1984 → 1989
$119
$100 in 1989 → 1984
$83.79
What happened to prices between 1984 and 1989
Between 1984 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 103.9 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 19.3%, which works out to an average of
3.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1984 bought what
$0.84 buys in 1989: the 1984 dollar
lost 16.2% of its purchasing power over
these 5 years.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
Every 1984 amount converts to 1989 at the same ratio, 1.19: $1,000 becomes
$1,193, and $10,000 becomes $11,935.
Amount in 1984
Value in 1989
$1.00
$1.19
$5.00
$5.97
$10.00
$11.93
$20.00
$23.87
$50.00
$59.67
$100
$119
$500
$597
$1,000
$1,193
$5,000
$5,967
$10,000
$11,935
$100,000
$119,346
$1,000,000
$1,193,455
Inflation by spending category, 1984–1989
Between 1984 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 39.8%, while energy fell 6.5%, against 19.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1984
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1984 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.60%
$119
Medical care
6.93%
$140
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.28%
$123
Food
3.92%
$121
Housing
3.49%
$119
Apparel
3.04%
$116
Transportation
1.93%
$110
Energy
-1.34%
$93.46
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1984: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1984
$100 from 1984 had already become $105 by
1986, on its way to $119 in 1989; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 4.8% in 1989, and the smallest rise was 1.9% in 1986.
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1984 had the buying
power of $119; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1984 to 1989: $100 is worth $119 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1984-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1984 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1984-to-1989/