$100 in 1965 is worth $822 in 2020,
because prices increased 721.6% over that period, an average of
3.90% a year.
$100 in 1965 has
the same buying power as
$822
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
721.6%
Average inflation rate
3.90% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$822
Price difference ($100 base)
$722
CPI in 1965
31.5
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1965 → 2020
$822
$100 in 2020 → 1965
$12.17
What happened to prices between 1965 and 2020
Between 1965 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 31.5 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 721.6%, which works out to an average of
3.90% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1965 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2020: the 1965 dollar
lost 87.8% of its purchasing power over
these 55 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 2020 at the same ratio, 8.22: $1,000 becomes
$8,216, and $10,000 becomes $82,162.
Amount in 1965
Value in 2020
$1.00
$8.22
$5.00
$41.08
$10.00
$82.16
$20.00
$164
$50.00
$411
$100
$822
$500
$4,108
$1,000
$8,216
$5,000
$41,081
$10,000
$82,162
$100,000
$821,622
$1,000,000
$8,216,222
Inflation by spending category, 1965–2020
Between 1965 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 1959.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 147.0%, against 721.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1965
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1965 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.90%
$822
Medical care
5.65%
$2,059
Energy
3.99%
$860
Food
3.92%
$830
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.90%
$819
Transportation
3.41%
$631
Apparel
1.66%
$247
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1965: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1965 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1965–2020 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$692
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$822
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1965
$100 from 1965 had already become $459 by
1993, on its way to $822 in 2020; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1965 had the buying
power of $822; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1965 to 2020: $100 is worth $822 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1965 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-2020/