$100 in 1957 is worth $119 in 1967,
because prices increased 18.9% over that period, an average of
1.74% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$119
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
18.9%
Average inflation rate
1.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$119
Price difference ($100 base)
$18.86
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1957 → 1967
$119
$100 in 1967 → 1957
$84.13
What happened to prices between 1957 and 1967
Between 1957 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 18.9%, which works out to an average of
1.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.84 buys in 1967: the 1957 dollar
lost 15.9% of its purchasing power over
these 10 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
Every 1957 amount converts to 1967 at the same ratio, 1.19: $1,000 becomes
$1,189, and $10,000 becomes $11,886.
Amount in 1957
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.19
$5.00
$5.94
$10.00
$11.89
$20.00
$23.77
$50.00
$59.43
$100
$119
$500
$594
$1,000
$1,189
$5,000
$5,943
$10,000
$11,886
$100,000
$118,861
$1,000,000
$1,188,612
Inflation by spending category, 1957–1967
Between 1957 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 43.1%, while energy rose the least, up 10.7%, against 18.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.74%
$119
Medical care
3.65%
$143
Transportation
1.86%
$120
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.85%
$120
Food
1.67%
$118
Apparel
1.37%
$115
Energy
1.02%
$111
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.75% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.74% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1957–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1957, at end
1957–1960
1.75%
5.3%
$105
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$119
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $107 by
1962, on its way to $119 in 1967; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.1% in 1967, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1967, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $119; 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 1957 to 1967: $100 is worth $119 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1967/