$100 in 1956 is worth $123 in 1967,
because prices increased 22.8% over that period, an average of
1.88% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$123
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
22.8%
Average inflation rate
1.88% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$123
Price difference ($100 base)
$22.79
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1956 → 1967
$123
$100 in 1967 → 1956
$81.44
What happened to prices between 1956 and 1967
Between 1956 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 22.8%, which works out to an average of
1.88% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.81 buys in 1967: the 1956 dollar
lost 18.6% of its purchasing power over
these 11 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1956, a return to mild inflation after they had
fallen 0.4% in 1955, the only annual decline of the decade. The two years sat
in the calmest stretch of the postwar index, a lull between the Korean War
price surge earlier in the 1950s and the acceleration that would return in
the 1970s. Congress had already raised the wage floor into that calm: the
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, signed the previous August, took
effect March 1 and lifted the federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour, the first increase since 1950. Eisenhower signed a longer-lasting
commitment on June 29, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, funding 41,000 miles of
controlled-access highway at 90% federal cost to build the Interstate
System, the largest public-works program the country had undertaken. He won
a second term that November, carrying 41 states and about 57% of the
popular vote in a rematch against Adlai Stevenson. Abroad, the Suez Crisis
broke the calm on the supply side: Egypt nationalized the canal on July 26,
and after Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29 with British and French
forces following, the canal’s closure and damaged pipelines squeezed oil
shipments to Western Europe for months. Consumer prices stood 174.7% above
their 1913 level by 1956, up 94% since 1940
alone, even after a decade that had barely moved the index. First-class
postage held at 3 cents, unchanged since 1932.
Every 1956 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.23: $1,000 becomes
$1,228, and $10,000 becomes $12,279.
Amount in 1956
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.23
$5.00
$6.14
$10.00
$12.28
$20.00
$24.56
$50.00
$61.40
$100
$123
$500
$614
$1,000
$1,228
$5,000
$6,140
$10,000
$12,279
$100,000
$122,794
$1,000,000
$1,227,941
Inflation by spending category, 1956–1967
Between 1956 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 49.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 16.7%, against 22.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.88%
$123
Medical care
3.70%
$149
Transportation
2.20%
$127
Food
1.81%
$122
Apparel
1.41%
$117
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1956: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1956 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.14% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.74% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1956, at end
1956–1960
2.14%
8.8%
$109
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$123
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $110 by
1961, on its way to $123 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 the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1967, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $123; 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 1956 to 1967: $100 is worth $123 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1967/