$100 in 1915 is worth $331 in 1967,
because prices increased 230.7% over that period, an average of
2.33% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$331
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
230.7%
Average inflation rate
2.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$331
Price difference ($100 base)
$231
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1915 → 1967
$331
$100 in 1967 → 1915
$30.24
What happened to prices between 1915 and 1967
Between 1915 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 230.7%, which works out to an average of
2.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.30 buys in 1967: the 1915 dollar
lost 69.8% of its purchasing power over
these 52 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1915, the second straight year of near-flat
inflation before the wartime price surges of 1916 through 1918. The year’s
defining event had nothing to do with prices directly: a German submarine
sank the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast on May 7, killing 128
Americans and hardening U.S. opinion against Germany two years before the
country entered the war. Economically, 1915 was a turning point of a
different kind. A recession that had dragged on since 1913 began lifting as
Britain and France placed growing orders for steel, munitions, and other war
materiel with American manufacturers, and U.S. exports to the Allied powers
climbed sharply through the year. That demand would keep building through
1916, eventually pulling prices up with it. On the regulatory
side, the Federal Trade Commission opened for business in March, taking on
enforcement of the Clayton Antitrust Act that Congress had passed the
previous fall. A first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, unchanged since 1885
and still two years from its first wartime increase.
Every 1915 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 3.31: $1,000 becomes
$3,307, and $10,000 becomes $33,069.
Amount in 1915
Value in 1967
$1.00
$3.31
$5.00
$16.53
$10.00
$33.07
$20.00
$66.14
$50.00
$165
$100
$331
$500
$1,653
$1,000
$3,307
$5,000
$16,535
$10,000
$33,069
$100,000
$330,693
$1,000,000
$3,306,931
Inflation by spending category, 1915–1967
Between 1915 and 1967, food rose the most, up 241.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 233.3%, against 230.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.33%
$331
Food
2.39%
$341
Apparel
2.34%
$333
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1915: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1915 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 14.64% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1915–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1915, at end
1915–1920
14.64%
98.0%
$198
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$165
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$139
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$239
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$293
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$331
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $146 by
1941, on its way to $331 in 1967; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1967
In 1967, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $331; the year's average CPI of 33.4 is the level
behind every 1967 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1967, up from 1966’s 2.9% as
Vietnam War spending kept climbing alongside expanding Great Society
programs, a combination of rising military and domestic outlays that
economists later blamed for entrenching inflation through the rest of the
decade. The minimum wage rose that February 1, to $1.40 an hour, the
first step of a phased increase Congress had set the year before. Urban
unrest reached a peak that July, when days of rioting left 26 dead in
Newark and 43 dead in Detroit, the deadliest of that summer’s roughly 160
disturbances; Johnson responded by forming the Kerner Commission to study
the causes of the unrest. The Supreme Court gained its first Black
justice that year too: the Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall on August
30, and he was sworn in that October after serving as U.S. Solicitor
General and, before that, as the lead attorney in Brown v. Board of
Education. Consumer prices finished 1967 237.4% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 1967: $100 is worth $331 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1967/