$100 in 1941 is worth $227 in 1967,
because prices increased 127.2% over that period, an average of
3.21% a year.
$100 in 1941 has
the same buying power as
$227
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
127.2%
Average inflation rate
3.21% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$227
Price difference ($100 base)
$127
CPI in 1941
14.7
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1941 → 1967
$227
$100 in 1967 → 1941
$44.01
What happened to prices between 1941 and 1967
Between 1941 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.7 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 127.2%, which works out to an average of
3.21% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1941 bought what
$0.44 buys in 1967: the 1941 dollar
lost 56.0% of its purchasing power over
these 26 years.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1941 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 2.27: $1,000 becomes
$2,272, and $10,000 becomes $22,721.
Amount in 1941
Value in 1967
$1.00
$2.27
$5.00
$11.36
$10.00
$22.72
$20.00
$45.44
$50.00
$114
$100
$227
$500
$1,136
$1,000
$2,272
$5,000
$11,361
$10,000
$22,721
$100,000
$227,211
$1,000,000
$2,272,109
Inflation by spending category, 1941–1967
Between 1941 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 171.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 123.7%, against 127.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1941
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1941 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.21%
$227
Medical care
3.91%
$271
Food
3.75%
$260
Transportation
3.20%
$227
Apparel
3.14%
$224
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1941: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1941 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.65% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.74% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1941–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1941, at end
1941–1950
5.65%
63.9%
$164
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$201
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$227
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1941
$100 from 1941 had already become $183 by
1954, on its way to $227 in 1967; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1967, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1941 had the buying
power of $227; 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 1941 to 1967: $100 is worth $227 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1941 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1967/