$100 in 1916 is worth $306 in 1967,
because prices increased 206.4% over that period, an average of
2.22% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$306
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
206.4%
Average inflation rate
2.22% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$306
Price difference ($100 base)
$206
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1916 → 1967
$306
$100 in 1967 → 1916
$32.63
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1967
Between 1916 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 206.4%, which works out to an average of
2.22% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.33 buys in 1967: the 1916 dollar
lost 67.4% of its purchasing power over
these 51 years.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
Every 1916 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 3.06: $1,000 becomes
$3,064, and $10,000 becomes $30,642.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1967
$1.00
$3.06
$5.00
$15.32
$10.00
$30.64
$20.00
$61.28
$50.00
$153
$100
$306
$500
$1,532
$1,000
$3,064
$5,000
$15,321
$10,000
$30,642
$100,000
$306,422
$1,000,000
$3,064,220
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1967
Between 1916 and 1967, apparel rose the most, up 203.6%, while food rose the least, up 201.8%, against 206.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.22%
$306
Apparel
2.20%
$304
Food
2.19%
$302
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1916: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1916 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$153
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$128
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$221
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$272
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$306
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $150 by
1942, on its way to $306 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 1916 had the buying
power of $306; 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 1916 to 1967: $100 is worth $306 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1967/