$100 in 1948 is worth $139 in 1967,
because prices increased 38.6% over that period, an average of
1.73% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$139
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
38.6%
Average inflation rate
1.73% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$139
Price difference ($100 base)
$38.59
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1948 → 1967
$139
$100 in 1967 → 1948
$72.16
What happened to prices between 1948 and 1967
Between 1948 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 38.6%, which works out to an average of
1.73% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.72 buys in 1967: the 1948 dollar
lost 27.8% of its purchasing power over
these 19 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.1% in 1948, down slightly from 1947’s
14.4% but still the second straight year of sharp postwar inflation now
that wartime price controls were fully gone. Congress moved to stabilize a
different economy that April, passing the Economic Cooperation Act to fund
the plan Secretary of State George Marshall had proposed the year before:
more than $13 billion over four years to rebuild Western Europe and counter
Soviet influence. The Cold War turned tense closer to the plan’s target
that June, when Soviet forces cut off road and rail access to the
Western-controlled sectors of Berlin. American and British aircraft
responded almost immediately with an airlift of food, fuel, and supplies
that would keep the city running for nearly a year. Domestic politics
produced its own upset that November: nearly every poll and pundit had
predicted a Republican win, but Harry Truman defeated New York Governor
Thomas Dewey, handing the Chicago Tribune its famously wrong “Dewey Defeats
Truman” headline. Consumer prices finished the year 143.4% above their
1913 level and 40.9% above 1929’s
pre-Depression peak. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1948 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.39: $1,000 becomes
$1,386, and $10,000 becomes $13,859.
Amount in 1948
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.39
$5.00
$6.93
$10.00
$13.86
$20.00
$27.72
$50.00
$69.29
$100
$139
$500
$693
$1,000
$1,386
$5,000
$6,929
$10,000
$13,859
$100,000
$138,589
$1,000,000
$1,385,892
Inflation by spending category, 1948–1967
Between 1948 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 95.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 20.0%, against 38.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.73%
$139
Medical care
3.60%
$196
Transportation
2.56%
$162
Food
1.42%
$131
Apparel
0.96%
$120
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1948: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1948 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.08% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (0.00% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1948–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1948, at end
1948–1950
0.00%
0.0%
$100
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$123
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$139
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $117 by
1957, on its way to $139 in 1967; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 7.9% in 1951, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1967, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $139; 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 1948 to 1967: $100 is worth $139 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1967/