Inflation Rate in 2009

What happened to inflation in 2009

In the depths of the financial crisis, falling demand produced a rare year of deflation — consumer prices actually fell over the year.

In 2009, prices fell 0.36% — a rare bout of deflation, down from 3.84% in 2008. That made it the lowest annual rate on record, and below the long-run average of 3.76%. For comparison, inflation sits at about 2.95% today.

What 2009's money is worth today

A rate is abstract until it's a price tag. Using the Consumer Price Index, here's what a given sum of 2009 dollars would have to grow to in order to buy the same goods today — the cumulative effect of every year of inflation in between:

Cumulative inflation since 2009 comes to about 46% — prices have risen roughly 1.5× over that span. Put another way, $100 today had the buying power of about $68 in 2009. To run your own figure across any two years, use the inflation calculator.

How 2009 compared

Across the full 1960–2024 record, inflation has averaged about 3.76%, so 2009 ran below that long-run norm. Within the 2000s, inflation averaged roughly 2.57%, and 2009 sat below its own decade. Five years earlier, in 2004, the rate was 2.68%. The following year, 2010, inflation rose to 1.64%.

Inflation shapes borrowing costs: when prices run hot, lenders demand higher rates to compensate. See what mortgage rates did in 2009 for the other side of the same story.

Inflation is only half of the "misery index" — the other half is joblessness. See how unemployment in 2009 compared, and what the two together meant for households.

This is one year out of the whole story. For the complete history — every year since 1960, the all-time high and the deflation low, the decade-by-decade view, and what drives inflation over time — see historical inflation rates, 1960–today.