$100 in 1999 is worth $155 in 2020,
because prices increased 55.3% over that period, an average of
2.12% a year.
$100 in 1999 has
the same buying power as
$155
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
55.3%
Average inflation rate
2.12% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$155
Price difference ($100 base)
$55.35
CPI in 1999
166.6
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1999
2.21%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1999 → 2020
$155
$100 in 2020 → 1999
$64.37
What happened to prices between 1999 and 2020
Between 1999 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 166.6 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 55.3%, which works out to an average of
2.12% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1999 bought what
$0.64 buys in 2020: the 1999 dollar
lost 35.6% of its purchasing power over
these 21 years.
The median household earned about $40,700 in 1999, gas averaged $1.17 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $161,000. Inflation ran at 2.2% for the year, ticking back up from 1998’s decade low
as oil prices recovered from their collapse. The decade closed with two changes to the financial
system that would shape the one after it: on January 1, the euro launched as an accounting
currency across 11 European countries, trading alongside national currencies like the French
franc and German mark ahead of physical cash in 2002, and in November, Congress passed the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, tearing down the Depression-era wall between commercial banks, investment
banks, and insurers. Stock markets, meanwhile, were absorbed in a boom of their own: the Nasdaq
surged through the year on soaring internet-stock valuations, and the Federal Reserve raised
interest rates three times in the second half of 1999 partly to cool the exuberance, even as it
pumped extra liquidity into the banking system to guard against any disruption from the Y2K
rollover. A first-class stamp cost 33 cents. Inflation had spent the decade falling from 1990’s
5.4% peak to averages closer to 2-3%, and 1999 closed it out almost exactly where the 1990s as a
whole had settled.
Every 1999 amount converts to 2020 at the same ratio, 1.55: $1,000 becomes
$1,553, and $10,000 becomes $15,535.
Amount in 1999
Value in 2020
$1.00
$1.55
$5.00
$7.77
$10.00
$15.53
$20.00
$31.07
$50.00
$77.67
$100
$155
$500
$777
$1,000
$1,553
$5,000
$7,767
$10,000
$15,535
$100,000
$155,349
$1,000,000
$1,553,487
Inflation by spending category, 1999–2020
Between 1999 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 107.1%, while apparel fell 10.1%, against 55.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1999
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1999 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.12%
$155
Medical care
3.53%
$207
Energy
2.97%
$185
Housing
2.44%
$166
Food
2.35%
$163
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.99%
$151
Transportation
1.60%
$139
Education & communication
1.57%
$139
Recreation
0.87%
$120
Apparel
-0.50%
$89.93
Decade by decade: 1999 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1990s, averaging 3.36% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1999–2020 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1999, at end
1999–2000
3.36%
3.4%
$103
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$131
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$155
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1999
$100 from 1999 had already become $129 by
2009, on its way to $155 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 1999 had the buying
power of $155; 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 1999 to 2020: $100 is worth $155 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1999-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1999 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1999-to-2020/