Value of $100 in 1988, adjusted to 2024

What happened to prices between 1988 and 2024

Between 1988 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 118.3 to 313.689. Cumulatively, prices increased 165.2%, which works out to an average of 2.75% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1988 bought what $0.38 buys in 2024: the 1988 dollar lost 62.3% of its purchasing power over these 36 years.

By 1988, the economic expansion that began in the ashes of the 1981-82 recession was in its sixth year, and the Federal Reserve was watching for signs it had run too long. Inflation rose to 4.1%, up from 3.6% the year before, while unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1974. Alan Greenspan’s Fed responded by raising the federal funds rate through the year, from about 6.5% to 8.5%, trying to cool demand before prices accelerated the way they had in the 1970s. Households still felt the difference between this expansion and the last one: gas held near 90 cents a gallon, almost exactly its 1987 price, and median household income rose to roughly $27,200. The one price that moved was postage, which rose from 22 to 25 cents in April, the fourth increase of the decade but a far gentler pace than the string of increases in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In November, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency on the strength of the expansion, promising in his nomination speech to hold the line on taxes. Both the boom and that pledge would run into trouble within two years, as the Fed’s rate increases helped tip the economy toward the 1990-91 recession.

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The destination year: 2024

In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1988 had the buying power of $265; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level behind every 2024 figure on this page.

2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon, below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.

The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7% kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.

Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election, attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices in 2025.

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