$100 in 1967 is worth $181 in 1977,
because prices increased 81.4% over that period, an average of
6.14% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$181
in 1977
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
81.4%
Average inflation rate
6.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$181
Price difference ($100 base)
$81.44
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1977
60.6
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1977
6.50%
$100 in 1967 → 1977
$181
$100 in 1977 → 1967
$55.12
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1977
Between 1967 and 1977, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 60.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 81.4%, which works out to an average of
6.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.55 buys in 1977: the 1967 dollar
lost 44.9% of its purchasing power over
these 10 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 1977 at the same ratio, 1.81: $1,000 becomes
$1,814, and $10,000 becomes $18,144.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1977
$1.00
$1.81
$5.00
$9.07
$10.00
$18.14
$20.00
$36.29
$50.00
$90.72
$100
$181
$500
$907
$1,000
$1,814
$5,000
$9,072
$10,000
$18,144
$100,000
$181,437
$1,000,000
$1,814,371
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1977
Between 1967 and 1977, energy rose the most, up 107.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 54.1%, against 81.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1977, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.14%
$181
Energy
7.58%
$208
Medical care
7.29%
$202
Food
6.75%
$192
Housing
6.42%
$186
Transportation
5.89%
$177
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.80%
$176
Apparel
4.42%
$154
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1977
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.58% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1977 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1967, at end
1967–1970
5.12%
16.2%
$116
1970–1977
6.58%
56.2%
$181
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $125 by
1972, on its way to $181 in 1977; 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 1977, prices rose 6.5% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $181; the year's average CPI of 60.6 is the level
behind every 1977 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.5% in 1977, ticking back up from 1976’s
5.8% as the economic recovery strengthened, wages climbed, and energy costs
pushed higher again. The year opened with a warning about that energy
dependence: record cold across the Midwest and Northeast in January and
February strained natural gas supplies so badly that schools and factories in
several states shut down for days to conserve fuel. Jimmy Carter, inaugurated
that January, made energy policy a centerpiece of his presidency, and
Congress created the cabinet-level Department of Energy that August to
consolidate programs built up piecemeal since the 1973 oil embargo. Culture
offered some relief from the anxiety: released that May, Star Wars became the
highest-grossing film in history to that point, drawing lines around theater
blocks for months. The year also closed an era in a different way. Elvis
Presley was found dead at his Graceland home on August 16 at age 42, drawing
tens of thousands of mourners to Memphis. A median household earned $13,572
in 1977, a new home sold for a median $48,800, and gas averaged 62 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices stood 512.1% above their 1913 level,
with the energy anxieties of the year setting up the harder shocks of 1978
and 1979.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1977: $100 is worth $181 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1977/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1977. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1977/