$100 in 1981 is worth $468.17 today

Buying power of $100 in 1981

This chart shows a calculation of buying power equivalence for $100 in 1981 (price index tracking began in 1922).

For example, if you started with $100, you would need to end with $468.17 in order to "adjust" for inflation (sometimes refered to as "beating inflation").

When $100 is equivalent to $468.17 over time, that means that the "real value" of a single Australian dollar decreases over time. In other words, a dollar will pay for fewer items at the store.

This effect explains how inflation erodes the value of a dollar over time. By calculating the value in 1981 dollars, the chart below shows how $100 is worth less over 43 years.

According to the Bureau of Statistics, each of these AUD amounts below is equal in terms of what it could buy at the time:

This conversion table shows various other 1981 amounts in today's dollars, based on the 368.17% change in prices:

How to calculate inflation rate for $100 since 1981

Our calculations use the following inflation rate formula to calculate the change in value between 1981 and today:

Then plug in historical CPI values. The Australian CPI was 28.9 in the year 1981 and 135.3 in 2024:

$100 in 1981 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as $468.17 in 2024.

To get the total inflation rate for the 43 years between 1981 and 2024, we use the following formula:

Plugging in the values to this equation, we get:

Data source & citation

Raw data for these calculations comes from the government of Australia's annual (CPI) as provided by the Reserve Bank of Australia. The consumer price index was established in 1922 and is tracked by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

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