$100 in 1966 is worth $113 in 1969,
because prices increased 13.3% over that period, an average of
4.24% a year.
$100 in 1966 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
13.3%
Average inflation rate
4.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.27
CPI in 1966
32.4
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1966
2.86%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1966 → 1969
$113
$100 in 1969 → 1966
$88.28
What happened to prices between 1966 and 1969
Between 1966 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 32.4 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 13.3%, which works out to an average of
4.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1966 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1969: the 1966 dollar
lost 11.7% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.9% in 1966, nearly double 1965’s
1.6% as Vietnam War spending kept climbing without an offsetting tax
increase, pushing the economy closer to capacity and prices higher along
with it. Medicare coverage took effect that July 1, extending federal
health insurance to roughly 19 million Americans age 65 and older under
the program signed into law the year before. The Federal Reserve had
already moved to cool the overheating economy, raising its discount rate
the previous December over White House objections; the tightening carried
into 1966 as the first postwar credit crunch, freezing parts of the
housing and municipal bond markets even as inflation kept climbing. Congress widened
the wage floor’s reach that September 23, when the Fair Labor Standards
Amendments of 1966 set a $1.40 minimum wage effective the following
February and extended coverage to roughly 9 million more workers in
retail, hospitals, schools, and other services not previously covered.
Consumer prices finished 1966 227.3% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
$1.25 an hour for the rest of the year.
Every 1966 amount converts to 1969 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,133, and $10,000 becomes $11,327.
Amount in 1966
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.13
$5.00
$5.66
$10.00
$11.33
$20.00
$22.65
$50.00
$56.64
$100
$113
$500
$566
$1,000
$1,133
$5,000
$5,664
$10,000
$11,327
$100,000
$113,272
$1,000,000
$1,132,716
Inflation by spending category, 1966–1969
Between 1966 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 21.3%, while energy rose the least, up 6.4%, against 13.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1966
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1966 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.24%
$113
Medical care
6.65%
$121
Apparel
5.05%
$116
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.66%
$115
Transportation
3.39%
$111
Food
3.15%
$110
Energy
2.10%
$106
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1966: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1966
$100 from 1966 had already become $103 by
1967, on its way to $113 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 3.1% in 1967.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1966 had the buying
power of $113; 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 1966 to 1969: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1966-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1966 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1966-to-1969/