$100 in 1945 is worth $186 in 1967,
because prices increased 85.6% over that period, an average of
2.85% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$186
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
85.6%
Average inflation rate
2.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$186
Price difference ($100 base)
$85.56
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1945 → 1967
$186
$100 in 1967 → 1945
$53.89
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1967
Between 1945 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 85.6%, which works out to an average of
2.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.54 buys in 1967: the 1945 dollar
lost 46.1% of its purchasing power over
these 22 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1945 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.86: $1,000 becomes
$1,856, and $10,000 becomes $18,556.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.86
$5.00
$9.28
$10.00
$18.56
$20.00
$37.11
$50.00
$92.78
$100
$186
$500
$928
$1,000
$1,856
$5,000
$9,278
$10,000
$18,556
$100,000
$185,556
$1,000,000
$1,855,556
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1967
Between 1945 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 137.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 62.4%, against 85.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.85%
$186
Medical care
4.00%
$237
Transportation
3.42%
$209
Food
3.13%
$197
Apparel
2.23%
$162
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1945: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1945 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.01% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.74% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1945, at end
1945–1950
6.01%
33.9%
$134
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$164
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$186
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $151 by
1956, on its way to $186 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 1945 had the buying
power of $186; 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 1945 to 1967: $100 is worth $186 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1967/