$100 in 1993 is worth $179 in 2020,
because prices increased 79.1% over that period, an average of
2.18% a year.
$100 in 1993 has
the same buying power as
$179
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
79.1%
Average inflation rate
2.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$179
Price difference ($100 base)
$79.11
CPI in 1993
144.5
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1993 → 2020
$179
$100 in 2020 → 1993
$55.83
What happened to prices between 1993 and 2020
Between 1993 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 144.5 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 79.1%, which works out to an average of
2.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1993 bought what
$0.56 buys in 2020: the 1993 dollar
lost 44.2% of its purchasing power over
these 27 years.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
Every 1993 amount converts to 2020 at the same ratio, 1.79: $1,000 becomes
$1,791, and $10,000 becomes $17,911.
Amount in 1993
Value in 2020
$1.00
$1.79
$5.00
$8.96
$10.00
$17.91
$20.00
$35.82
$50.00
$89.55
$100
$179
$500
$896
$1,000
$1,791
$5,000
$8,955
$10,000
$17,911
$100,000
$179,108
$1,000,000
$1,791,080
Inflation by spending category, 1993–2020
Between 1993 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 157.6%, while apparel fell 11.7%, against 79.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1993
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1993 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.18%
$179
Medical care
3.57%
$258
Housing
2.45%
$192
Food
2.40%
$190
Energy
2.39%
$189
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.11%
$176
Education & communication
1.85%
$164
Transportation
1.62%
$154
Recreation
1.11%
$135
Apparel
-0.46%
$88.32
Decade by decade: 1993 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1990s, averaging 2.54% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1993–2020 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1993, at end
1993–2000
2.54%
19.2%
$119
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$151
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$179
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1993
$100 from 1993 had already become $140 by
2006, on its way to $179 in 2020; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.8% in 2008, and prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1993 had the buying
power of $179; 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 1993 to 2020: $100 is worth $179 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1993-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1993 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1993-to-2020/