$100 in 1951 is worth $128 in 1967,
because prices increased 28.5% over that period, an average of
1.58% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$128
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
28.5%
Average inflation rate
1.58% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$128
Price difference ($100 base)
$28.46
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1951 → 1967
$128
$100 in 1967 → 1951
$77.84
What happened to prices between 1951 and 1967
Between 1951 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 28.5%, which works out to an average of
1.58% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1967: the 1951 dollar
lost 22.2% of its purchasing power over
these 16 years.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in 1951, up sharply from 1950’s
1.3% and the fastest increase since 1947, as Korean War buying and a
defense spending surge hit an economy still adjusting to peacetime. Much
of the jump came early in the year, before the government stepped in: the
Office of Price Stabilization imposed a general ceiling on prices January
26, and the Wage Stabilization Board froze wages soon after, the broadest
peacetime controls since the war began that June. The year’s more lasting
change came in monetary policy. On March 4, the Treasury and the Federal
Reserve signed the Accord, ending the Fed’s wartime obligation to hold
down interest rates on government bonds and freeing the central bank to
fight inflation on its own terms for the first time since 1942, a shift
that would shape Fed independence for decades. Congress raised taxes that
October to help pay for the war: the Revenue Act of 1951, signed October
20, lifted individual and corporate income taxes along with a range of
excise taxes, the third increase in taxes since fighting began in Korea.
Consumer prices finished 1951 162.6% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
75 cents an hour.
Every 1951 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.28: $1,000 becomes
$1,285, and $10,000 becomes $12,846.
Amount in 1951
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.28
$5.00
$6.42
$10.00
$12.85
$20.00
$25.69
$50.00
$64.23
$100
$128
$500
$642
$1,000
$1,285
$5,000
$6,423
$10,000
$12,846
$100,000
$128,462
$1,000,000
$1,284,615
Inflation by spending category, 1951–1967
Between 1951 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 77.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 16.2%, against 28.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.58%
$128
Medical care
3.65%
$177
Transportation
2.04%
$138
Food
1.19%
$121
Apparel
0.94%
$116
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1951: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1951 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 1.74% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.45% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1951–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1951, at end
1951–1960
1.45%
13.8%
$114
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$128
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1951
$100 from 1951 had already become $112 by
1959, on its way to $128 in 1967; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.3% in 1957, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1967, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $128; 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 1951 to 1967: $100 is worth $128 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1967/