$100 in 1984 is worth $249 in 2020,
because prices increased 149.1% over that period, an average of
2.57% a year.
$100 in 1984 has
the same buying power as
$249
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
149.1%
Average inflation rate
2.57% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$249
Price difference ($100 base)
$149
CPI in 1984
103.9
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1984 → 2020
$249
$100 in 2020 → 1984
$40.15
What happened to prices between 1984 and 2020
Between 1984 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 103.9 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 149.1%, which works out to an average of
2.57% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1984 bought what
$0.40 buys in 2020: the 1984 dollar
lost 59.9% of its purchasing power over
these 36 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 2020 at the same ratio, 2.49: $1,000 becomes
$2,491, and $10,000 becomes $24,910.
Amount in 1984
Value in 2020
$1.00
$2.49
$5.00
$12.45
$10.00
$24.91
$20.00
$49.82
$50.00
$125
$100
$249
$500
$1,245
$1,000
$2,491
$5,000
$12,455
$10,000
$24,910
$100,000
$249,096
$1,000,000
$2,490,962
Inflation by spending category, 1984–2020
Between 1984 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 385.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 15.7%, against 149.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1984
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1984 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.57%
$249
Medical care
4.49%
$486
Housing
2.72%
$262
Food
2.68%
$259
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.64%
$256
Energy
1.88%
$195
Transportation
1.86%
$194
Apparel
0.40%
$116
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1984: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1984 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 3.90% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1984–2020 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1984, at end
1984–1990
3.90%
25.8%
$126
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$166
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$210
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$249
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1984
$100 from 1984 had already become $173 by
2002, on its way to $249 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 1984 had the buying
power of $249; 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 1984 to 2020: $100 is worth $249 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1984-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1984 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1984-to-2020/