$100 in 1946 is worth $171 in 1967,
because prices increased 71.3% over that period, an average of
2.60% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$171
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
71.3%
Average inflation rate
2.60% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$171
Price difference ($100 base)
$71.28
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1946 → 1967
$171
$100 in 1967 → 1946
$58.38
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1967
Between 1946 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 71.3%, which works out to an average of
2.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1967: the 1946 dollar
lost 41.6% of its purchasing power over
these 21 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1946 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.71: $1,000 becomes
$1,713, and $10,000 becomes $17,128.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.71
$5.00
$8.56
$10.00
$17.13
$20.00
$34.26
$50.00
$85.64
$100
$171
$500
$856
$1,000
$1,713
$5,000
$8,564
$10,000
$17,128
$100,000
$171,282
$1,000,000
$1,712,821
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1967
Between 1946 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 125.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 48.3%, against 71.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.60%
$171
Medical care
3.95%
$226
Transportation
3.34%
$199
Food
2.62%
$172
Apparel
1.89%
$148
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1946: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1946 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.44% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.74% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1946, at end
1946–1950
5.44%
23.6%
$124
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$152
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$171
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $139 by
1956, on its way to $171 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 1946 had the buying
power of $171; 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 1946 to 1967: $100 is worth $171 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1967/