$100 in 1989 is worth $209 in 2020,
because prices increased 108.7% over that period, an average of
2.40% a year.
$100 in 1989 has
the same buying power as
$209
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
108.7%
Average inflation rate
2.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$209
Price difference ($100 base)
$109
CPI in 1989
124
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1989 → 2020
$209
$100 in 2020 → 1989
$47.91
What happened to prices between 1989 and 2020
Between 1989 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 124 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 108.7%, which works out to an average of
2.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1989 bought what
$0.48 buys in 2020: the 1989 dollar
lost 52.1% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 2020 at the same ratio, 2.09: $1,000 becomes
$2,087, and $10,000 becomes $20,872.
Amount in 1989
Value in 2020
$1.00
$2.09
$5.00
$10.44
$10.00
$20.87
$20.00
$41.74
$50.00
$104
$100
$209
$500
$1,044
$1,000
$2,087
$5,000
$10,436
$10,000
$20,872
$100,000
$208,719
$1,000,000
$2,087,185
Inflation by spending category, 1989–2020
Between 1989 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 247.5%, while apparel fell 0.4%, against 108.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1989
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1989 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.40%
$209
Medical care
4.10%
$348
Housing
2.59%
$221
Food
2.48%
$214
Energy
2.40%
$209
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.38%
$208
Transportation
1.85%
$176
Apparel
-0.01%
$99.56
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1989: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1989 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 5.40% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1989–2020 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$176
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$209
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1989
$100 from 1989 had already become $158 by
2005, on its way to $209 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 1989 had the buying
power of $209; 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 1989 to 2020: $100 is worth $209 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1989-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1989 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1989-to-2020/