$100 in 1967 is worth $170 in 1976,
because prices increased 70.4% over that period, an average of
6.10% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$170
in 1976
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
70.4%
Average inflation rate
6.10% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$170
Price difference ($100 base)
$70.36
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1976
56.9
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1976
5.76%
$100 in 1967 → 1976
$170
$100 in 1976 → 1967
$58.70
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1976
Between 1967 and 1976, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 56.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 70.4%, which works out to an average of
6.10% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1976: the 1967 dollar
lost 41.3% of its purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1967, up from 1966’s 2.9% as
Vietnam War spending kept climbing alongside expanding Great Society
programs, a combination of rising military and domestic outlays that
economists later blamed for entrenching inflation through the rest of the
decade. The minimum wage rose that February 1, to $1.40 an hour, the
first step of a phased increase Congress had set the year before. Urban
unrest reached a peak that July, when days of rioting left 26 dead in
Newark and 43 dead in Detroit, the deadliest of that summer’s roughly 160
disturbances; Johnson responded by forming the Kerner Commission to study
the causes of the unrest. The Supreme Court gained its first Black
justice that year too: the Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall on August
30, and he was sworn in that October after serving as U.S. Solicitor
General and, before that, as the lead attorney in Brown v. Board of
Education. Consumer prices finished 1967 237.4% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents.
Every 1967 amount converts to 1976 at the same ratio, 1.70: $1,000 becomes
$1,704, and $10,000 becomes $17,036.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1976
$1.00
$1.70
$5.00
$8.52
$10.00
$17.04
$20.00
$34.07
$50.00
$85.18
$100
$170
$500
$852
$1,000
$1,704
$5,000
$8,518
$10,000
$17,036
$100,000
$170,359
$1,000,000
$1,703,593
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1976
Between 1967 and 1976, energy rose the most, up 89.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 47.5%, against 70.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1976, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.10%
$170
Energy
7.36%
$189
Medical care
7.04%
$184
Food
6.79%
$181
Housing
6.39%
$175
Transportation
5.75%
$165
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.75%
$165
Apparel
4.41%
$147
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1976
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.59% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1976 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1967, at end
1967–1970
5.12%
16.2%
$116
1970–1976
6.59%
46.6%
$170
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $121 by
1971, on its way to $170 in 1976; 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 3.2% in 1972.
In 1976, prices rose 5.8% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $170; the year's average CPI of 56.9 is the level
behind every 1976 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.8% in 1976, the calmest pace since 1972,
as the economy pulled out of the 1973-75 recession and price growth settled
to roughly half its 1974 peak. The recovery gave Americans
room to celebrate: tall ships filled New York Harbor and fireworks lit cities
nationwide on July 4 for the country’s bicentennial, a rare moment of shared
celebration after Vietnam and Watergate. Politically, Jimmy Carter, a former
Georgia governor running as a Washington outsider, defeated incumbent Gerald
Ford that November, campaigning on restoring trust in government and bringing
down inflation and unemployment together. In a California garage, Steve
Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer that April to
sell the Apple I, a bare circuit board aimed at electronics hobbyists, a
business that looked far from consequential at the time. First-class
postage, which had risen to 13 cents that past December 31, held there
through the year, the longest stretch without a rate change since the Postal
Service’s creation. A median household earned $12,686 in 1976, a new home
sold for a median $44,200, and gas averaged 59 cents a gallon. Consumer
prices stood 474.7% above their 1913 level, a calm interlude
before inflation turned back up.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1976: $100 is worth $170 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1976/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1976. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1976/