$100 in 1919 is worth $193 in 1967,
because prices increased 93.1% over that period, an average of
1.38% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$193
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
93.1%
Average inflation rate
1.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$193
Price difference ($100 base)
$93.06
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1919 → 1967
$193
$100 in 1967 → 1919
$51.80
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1967
Between 1919 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 93.1%, which works out to an average of
1.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.52 buys in 1967: the 1919 dollar
lost 48.2% of its purchasing power over
these 48 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.93: $1,000 becomes
$1,931, and $10,000 becomes $19,306.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.93
$5.00
$9.65
$10.00
$19.31
$20.00
$38.61
$50.00
$96.53
$100
$193
$500
$965
$1,000
$1,931
$5,000
$9,653
$10,000
$19,306
$100,000
$193,064
$1,000,000
$1,930,636
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1967
Between 1919 and 1967, food rose the most, up 83.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 40.9%, against 93.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.38%
$193
Food
1.27%
$183
Apparel
0.72%
$141
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.92
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$171
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$193
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $100 by
1943, on its way to $193 in 1967; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, 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 1919 had the buying
power of $193; 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 1919 to 1967: $100 is worth $193 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1967/