$100 in 1989 is worth $173 in 2009,
because prices increased 73.0% over that period, an average of
2.78% a year.
$100 in 1989 has
the same buying power as
$173
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
73.0%
Average inflation rate
2.78% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$173
Price difference ($100 base)
$73.01
CPI in 1989
124
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1989 → 2009
$173
$100 in 2009 → 1989
$57.80
What happened to prices between 1989 and 2009
Between 1989 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 124 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 73.0%, which works out to an average of
2.78% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1989 bought what
$0.58 buys in 2009: the 1989 dollar
lost 42.2% of its purchasing power over
these 20 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 2009 at the same ratio, 1.73: $1,000 becomes
$1,730, and $10,000 becomes $17,301.
Amount in 1989
Value in 2009
$1.00
$1.73
$5.00
$8.65
$10.00
$17.30
$20.00
$34.60
$50.00
$86.51
$100
$173
$500
$865
$1,000
$1,730
$5,000
$8,651
$10,000
$17,301
$100,000
$173,014
$1,000,000
$1,730,137
Inflation by spending category, 1989–2009
Between 1989 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 151.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 1.2%, against 73.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1989
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1989 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.78%
$173
Medical care
4.72%
$252
Energy
3.65%
$205
Housing
2.88%
$176
Food
2.81%
$174
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.69%
$170
Transportation
2.28%
$157
Apparel
0.06%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1989: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1989 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 5.40% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1989–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$173
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1989
$100 from 1989 had already become $134 by
1999, on its way to $173 in 2009; 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.
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1989 had the buying
power of $173; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1989 to 2009: $100 is worth $173 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1989-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1989 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1989-to-2009/