$100 in 1965 is worth $600 in 2004,
because prices increased 499.7% over that period, an average of
4.70% a year.
$100 in 1965 has
the same buying power as
$600
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
499.7%
Average inflation rate
4.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$600
Price difference ($100 base)
$500
CPI in 1965
31.5
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1965 → 2004
$600
$100 in 2004 → 1965
$16.68
What happened to prices between 1965 and 2004
Between 1965 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 31.5 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 499.7%, which works out to an average of
4.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1965 bought what
$0.17 buys in 2004: the 1965 dollar
lost 83.3% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 2004 at the same ratio, 6.00: $1,000 becomes
$5,997, and $10,000 becomes $59,968.
Amount in 1965
Value in 2004
$1.00
$6.00
$5.00
$29.98
$10.00
$59.97
$20.00
$120
$50.00
$300
$100
$600
$500
$2,998
$1,000
$5,997
$5,000
$29,984
$10,000
$59,968
$100,000
$599,683
$1,000,000
$5,996,825
Inflation by spending category, 1965–2004
Between 1965 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 1130.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 151.9%, against 499.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1965
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1965 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.70%
$600
Medical care
6.65%
$1,231
Energy
4.96%
$661
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.71%
$601
Food
4.60%
$578
Transportation
4.27%
$511
Apparel
2.40%
$252
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1965: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1965 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1965–2004 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1965, at end
1965–1970
4.26%
23.2%
$123
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$262
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$415
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$547
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$600
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1965
$100 from 1965 had already become $342 by
1985, on its way to $600 in 2004; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 1.6% in 1998.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1965 had the buying
power of $600; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1965 to 2004: $100 is worth $600 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1965 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-2004/