Between 1965 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 31.5 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 829.1%, which works out to an average of
3.99% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1965 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2022.
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.
The headline number is an average. Individual categories moved very differently over this
period. Here is what $100 of 1965 spending costs in 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1965 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.99%
$929
Medical care
5.55%
$2,169
Energy
4.61%
$1,302
Food
4.03%
$948
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.93%
$900
Transportation
3.79%
$835
Apparel
1.73%
$266
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1965: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2022
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1965 to 2022: $100 is worth $929 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1965 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-2022/