$100 in 1965 is worth $207 in 1978,
because prices increased 107.0% over that period, an average of
5.76% a year.
$100 in 1965 has
the same buying power as
$207
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
107.0%
Average inflation rate
5.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$207
Price difference ($100 base)
$107
CPI in 1965
31.5
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1965 → 1978
$207
$100 in 1978 → 1965
$48.31
What happened to prices between 1965 and 1978
Between 1965 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 31.5 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 107.0%, which works out to an average of
5.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1965 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1978: the 1965 dollar
lost 51.7% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1978 at the same ratio, 2.07: $1,000 becomes
$2,070, and $10,000 becomes $20,698.
Amount in 1965
Value in 1978
$1.00
$2.07
$5.00
$10.35
$10.00
$20.70
$20.00
$41.40
$50.00
$103
$100
$207
$500
$1,035
$1,000
$2,070
$5,000
$10,349
$10,000
$20,698
$100,000
$206,984
$1,000,000
$2,069,841
Inflation by spending category, 1965–1978
Between 1965 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 145.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 70.3%, against 107.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1965
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1965 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.76%
$207
Medical care
7.14%
$245
Energy
6.59%
$229
Food
6.39%
$224
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.49%
$200
Transportation
5.21%
$193
Apparel
4.18%
$170
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1965: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1965 to 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (4.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1965–1978 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1965, at end
1965–1970
4.26%
23.2%
$123
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$207
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1965
$100 from 1965 had already become $129 by
1971, on its way to $207 in 1978; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and the smallest rise was 2.9% in 1966.
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1965 had the buying
power of $207; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1965 to 1978: $100 is worth $207 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1965 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-1978/