$100 in 1944 is worth $190 in 1967,
because prices increased 89.8% over that period, an average of
2.82% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$190
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
89.8%
Average inflation rate
2.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$190
Price difference ($100 base)
$89.77
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1944 → 1967
$190
$100 in 1967 → 1944
$52.69
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1967
Between 1944 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 89.8%, which works out to an average of
2.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1967: the 1944 dollar
lost 47.3% of its purchasing power over
these 23 years.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1944 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.90: $1,000 becomes
$1,898, and $10,000 becomes $18,977.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.90
$5.00
$9.49
$10.00
$18.98
$20.00
$37.95
$50.00
$94.89
$100
$190
$500
$949
$1,000
$1,898
$5,000
$9,489
$10,000
$18,977
$100,000
$189,773
$1,000,000
$1,897,727
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1967
Between 1944 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 143.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 71.1%, against 89.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.82%
$190
Medical care
3.94%
$243
Transportation
3.27%
$209
Food
3.10%
$202
Apparel
2.36%
$171
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1944: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1944 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.38% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.74% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1944, at end
1944–1950
5.38%
36.9%
$137
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$168
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$190
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $152 by
1955, on its way to $190 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 1944 had the buying
power of $190; 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 1944 to 1967: $100 is worth $190 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1967/