$100 in 1954 is worth $124 in 1967,
because prices increased 24.2% over that period, an average of
1.68% a year.
$100 in 1954 has
the same buying power as
$124
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
24.2%
Average inflation rate
1.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$124
Price difference ($100 base)
$24.16
CPI in 1954
26.9
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1954
0.75%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1954 → 1967
$124
$100 in 1967 → 1954
$80.54
What happened to prices between 1954 and 1967
Between 1954 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.9 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 24.2%, which works out to an average of
1.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1954 bought what
$0.81 buys in 1967: the 1954 dollar
lost 19.5% of its purchasing power over
these 13 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1954, extending 1953’s 0.8%
slowdown even as the economy tipped into recession, an early example of
prices continuing to rise through a downturn rather than falling with it.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that recession from July
1953 to May 1954, as defense spending fell after the Korean War armistice
and the tighter monetary policy of the year before worked its way through
the economy. The Supreme Court reshaped a different part of American life
that spring: its unanimous May 17 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
held that “separate but equal” public schools violated the Constitution,
overturning the legal basis for segregated education. Washington also
closed the book on a different fight that year. Following the televised
Army-McCarthy hearings that spring, the Senate voted 67 to 22 on December
2 to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy’s conduct, ending his dominance of
American politics after four years of anti-communist investigations.
Consumer prices finished 1954 171.7% above their 1913
level, essentially flat with 1953 as the mild recession
held the cost of living in check. First-class postage held at 3 cents,
and the minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
Every 1954 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.24: $1,000 becomes
$1,242, and $10,000 becomes $12,416.
Amount in 1954
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.24
$5.00
$6.21
$10.00
$12.42
$20.00
$24.83
$50.00
$62.08
$100
$124
$500
$621
$1,000
$1,242
$5,000
$6,208
$10,000
$12,416
$100,000
$124,164
$1,000,000
$1,241,636
Inflation by spending category, 1954–1967
Between 1954 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 58.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 18.3%, against 24.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1954
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1954 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.68%
$124
Medical care
3.60%
$158
Transportation
1.89%
$128
Food
1.47%
$121
Apparel
1.30%
$118
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1954: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1954 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 1.74% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.61% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1954–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1954, at end
1954–1960
1.61%
10.0%
$110
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$124
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1954
$100 from 1954 had already become $110 by
1960, on its way to $124 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 1954 had the buying
power of $124; 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 1954 to 1967: $100 is worth $124 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1954 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1967/