Buying power of $5,250 in 1970

This chart shows a calculation of buying power equivalence for $5,250 in 1970 (price index tracking began in 1922).

For example, if you started with $5,250, you would need to end with $68,196.43 in order to "adjust" for inflation (sometimes refered to as "beating inflation").

When $5,250 is equivalent to $68,196.43 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 1970 dollars, the chart below shows how $5,250 is worth less over 52 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 1970 amounts in 2022 dollars, based on the 1,198.98% change in prices:

How to calculate inflation rate for $5,250, 1970 to 2022

Our calculations use the following inflation rate formula to calculate the change in value between 1970 and 2022:

Then plug in historical CPI values. The Australian CPI was 9.8 in the year 1970 and 127.3 in 2022:

$5,250 in 1970 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as $68,196.43 in 2022.

To get the total inflation rate for the 52 years between 1970 and 2022, 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).

» Read more about inflation and investment.