$100 in 1989 is worth $152 in 2004,
because prices increased 52.3% over that period, an average of
2.85% a year.
$100 in 1989 has
the same buying power as
$152
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
52.3%
Average inflation rate
2.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$152
Price difference ($100 base)
$52.34
CPI in 1989
124
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1989 → 2004
$152
$100 in 2004 → 1989
$65.64
What happened to prices between 1989 and 2004
Between 1989 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 124 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 52.3%, which works out to an average of
2.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1989 bought what
$0.66 buys in 2004: the 1989 dollar
lost 34.4% of its purchasing power over
these 15 years.
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.
Every 1989 amount converts to 2004 at the same ratio, 1.52: $1,000 becomes
$1,523, and $10,000 becomes $15,234.
Amount in 1989
Value in 2004
$1.00
$1.52
$5.00
$7.62
$10.00
$15.23
$20.00
$30.47
$50.00
$76.17
$100
$152
$500
$762
$1,000
$1,523
$5,000
$7,617
$10,000
$15,234
$100,000
$152,339
$1,000,000
$1,523,387
Inflation by spending category, 1989–2004
Between 1989 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 107.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 1.5%, against 52.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1989
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1989 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.85%
$152
Medical care
4.99%
$208
Energy
3.21%
$161
Housing
2.92%
$154
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.85%
$152
Food
2.69%
$149
Transportation
2.41%
$143
Apparel
0.10%
$102
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1989: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1989 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 5.40% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1989–2004 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1989, at end
1989–1990
5.40%
5.4%
$105
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$139
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$152
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1989
$100 from 1989 had already become $127 by
1996, on its way to $152 in 2004; 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 the smallest rise was 1.6% in 1998.
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1989 had the buying
power of $152; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1989 to 2004: $100 is worth $152 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1989-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1989 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1989-to-2004/