The three years from 1979 to 1981 hold the largest yearly price increases ever recorded for men’s shoes, women’s shoes and children’s shoes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Those three indexes start in 1978, so the record is a short one, but the jumps stand out clearly. Men’s shoes rose 9.7% in 1979, women’s 6.3%, and children’s shoes 10.5% in 1980. And yet, measured against everything else Americans bought, shoes were getting cheaper during those same years.
The numbers, year by year
The table compares the annual average change of each index. The figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) series our site reads, with all CPI indexes set to 100 for the 1982–84 average.
| Year | All footwear | Men’s / Women’s / Kids’ | All items |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | +4.4% | (series begin) | +7.6% |
| 1979 | +7.9% | +9.7% / +6.3% / +8.1% | +11.3% |
| 1980 | +7.7% | +7.6% / +6.1% / +10.5% | +13.5% |
| 1981 | +5.3% | +5.2% / +5.0% / +5.8% | +10.3% |
| 1982 | +2.5% | +3.3% / +3.2% / +0.7% | +6.1% |
Rank those years against every year since 1979 and they land at the top. For men’s shoes, 1979 is first, 1980 second and 1981 fourth (1988, at +5.9%, slips in third). For women’s shoes, 1979, 1980 and 1981 are first, second and third. For kids’ shoes, 1980 is first, 1979 second and 1981 fourth, behind 2022.
The broader all-footwear index goes back to 1947, and it gives a longer view. On that series, 1979 (+7.9%) and 1980 (+7.7%) rank third and fourth out of 78 years. Only 1951 (+13.1%) and 1948 (+9.2%) were steeper. So the late 1970s brought the fastest shoe inflation since 1951, and no year after 1981 has matched them.
You can look up any of these years on our pages for 1979 and 1980, which convert a price from that year into September 2026 dollars.
Shoes still lost ground to inflation
The all-items CPI rose 11.3% in 1979, 13.5% in 1980 and 10.3% in 1981. In every one of those years, footwear rose less. Divide the footwear index by the all-items index and you get an inflation-adjusted, or real, shoe price. From 1978 to 1981 that real price fell 12.2%. By 1982 it was 15.2% below 1978.
Each group followed the same path. From 1978 to 1981, the real price of men’s shoes fell 10.9%, women’s 15.0% and kids’ 9.4%. Women’s shoes, which rose least in dollars, lost the most against general inflation.
This is the pattern our shoes versus inflation comparison shows for the whole period since 1978. Over 1978–2025, all footwear rose 84.4% while all items rose 393.5%. The late 1970s were simply the years when shoe prices came nearest to keeping pace, at a time when almost every price in the economy was climbing at double-digit rates.
Apparel, the CPI group that includes clothing as well as footwear, moved in a similar way. It rose 4.4% in 1979, 7.1% in 1980 and 4.8% in 1981. Footwear actually outran clothing in 1979 and 1981.
The 1977 orderly marketing agreements
Trade policy changed for shoe imports just before these increases. The record is in presidential documents of the period.
On February 8, 1977, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) reported to the President under section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 that footwear imports were rising in such quantities as to be a substantial cause of serious injury to the domestic industry. The USITC had recommended tariff rate quotas. President Carter chose a different route.
Ambassador Robert Strauss, the President’s trade negotiator, worked out orderly marketing agreements, which are deals in which an exporting country agrees to hold its shipments below a set level. According to Proclamation 4510, signed June 22, 1977, the agreements were concluded on June 14, 1977, with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and on June 21, 1977, with the Republic of Korea. They took effect June 28, 1977, and the proclamation was to remain in force through June 30, 1981. It covered footwear in items 700.05 through 700.85 of the Tariff Schedules of the United States, with several items excluded, including disposable footwear for one-time use.
A May 31, 1977, memo to the President from Blumenthal, chairman of the Economic Policy Group, set out the expected effects. It said exports of non-rubber footwear from the two countries would average 13.6 million pairs a month over the four years, 17% below the 1976 level. It estimated a 3.4% increase in consumer costs, around 44 cents per pair of shoes at retail, and noted that the Council of Economic Advisers expected a considerably higher inflation effect.
What happened to imports afterward
The limits applied to two countries, not to the world. A February 8, 1980, memo from U.S. Trade Representative Reubin Askew to President Carter reported that total footwear imports rose from 374 million pairs in 1978 to 405 million pairs in 1979. Imports from Italy alone went from 63 million to 97 million pairs over the same span, while U.S. production and employment were declining. The memo recorded that the industry and unions were asking for global quotas. Askew did not think a global quota was warranted at that point and projected 1980 imports of about 380 to 385 million pairs.
The memo also notes that the Commission had proposed a high duty on imports above 266 million pairs, which the President rejected in 1977 in favor of the agreements.
How much of the price rise came from trade limits
The sources do not allow a clean split, and we do not attempt one. Here is what can be said from the documents and the data together.
- The government’s own 1977 estimate put the consumer cost of the agreements at about 3.4%, spread over four years, with the CEA expecting more. Shoe prices in the CPI rose 7.9%, 7.7% and 5.3% in 1979, 1980 and 1981.
- General inflation was higher still in each of those years, so the rise in shoe prices happened inside a much broader rise in consumer prices.
- The agreements covered two supplying countries, and imports from others, such as Italy, kept growing after 1977.
After 1981 shoe inflation fell quickly. All footwear rose 2.5% in 1982, 0.7% in 1983 and 1.2% in 1984, while the all-items CPI was still rising between 3.2% and 6.1% a year. The all-footwear page shows that slowdown on a long chart.
What this means if you are checking an old price
If you are converting a price from around 1980, the year you pick matters more than it does for most later decades. Our index puts $100 spent on men’s shoes in 1978 at $210.98 in September 2026, but $100 in 1980 at only $178.72, because two fast years sit between them. On the all-items CPI, $100 from 1980 becomes $408.87. The difference between those two answers is the gap between shoe prices and general prices, and much of it opened in exactly these years. For men’s shoes specifically, see our men’s shoe price history.