$100 in 1965 is worth $117 in 1969,
because prices increased 16.5% over that period, an average of
3.89% a year.
$100 in 1965 has
the same buying power as
$117
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
16.5%
Average inflation rate
3.89% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$117
Price difference ($100 base)
$16.51
CPI in 1965
31.5
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1965 → 1969
$117
$100 in 1969 → 1965
$85.83
What happened to prices between 1965 and 1969
Between 1965 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 31.5 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 16.5%, which works out to an average of
3.89% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1965 bought what
$0.86 buys in 1969: the 1965 dollar
lost 14.2% of its purchasing power over
these 4 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
Every 1965 amount converts to 1969 at the same ratio, 1.17: $1,000 becomes
$1,165, and $10,000 becomes $11,651.
Amount in 1965
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.17
$5.00
$5.83
$10.00
$11.65
$20.00
$23.30
$50.00
$58.25
$100
$117
$500
$583
$1,000
$1,165
$5,000
$5,825
$10,000
$11,651
$100,000
$116,508
$1,000,000
$1,165,079
Inflation by spending category, 1965–1969
Between 1965 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 26.6%, while energy rose the least, up 8.3%, against 16.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1965
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1965 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.89%
$117
Medical care
6.07%
$127
Apparel
4.41%
$119
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.10%
$117
Food
3.60%
$115
Transportation
2.85%
$112
Energy
2.01%
$108
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1965: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1965
$100 from 1965 had already become $106 by
1967, on its way to $117 in 1969; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.5% in 1969, and the smallest rise was 2.9% in 1966.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1965 had the buying
power of $117; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1965 to 1969: $100 is worth $117 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1965 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-1969/