$100 in 1967 is worth $195 in 1978,
because prices increased 95.2% over that period, an average of
6.27% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$195
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
95.2%
Average inflation rate
6.27% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$195
Price difference ($100 base)
$95.21
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1967 → 1978
$195
$100 in 1978 → 1967
$51.23
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1978
Between 1967 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 95.2%, which works out to an average of
6.27% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.51 buys in 1978: the 1967 dollar
lost 48.8% of its purchasing power over
these 11 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 1978 at the same ratio, 1.95: $1,000 becomes
$1,952, and $10,000 becomes $19,521.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1978
$1.00
$1.95
$5.00
$9.76
$10.00
$19.52
$20.00
$39.04
$50.00
$97.60
$100
$195
$500
$976
$1,000
$1,952
$5,000
$9,760
$10,000
$19,521
$100,000
$195,210
$1,000,000
$1,952,096
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1978
Between 1967 and 1978, energy rose the most, up 120.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 59.6%, against 95.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.27%
$195
Energy
7.46%
$221
Medical care
7.39%
$219
Food
7.03%
$211
Housing
6.63%
$203
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.95%
$189
Transportation
5.77%
$185
Apparel
4.34%
$160
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1978 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1967, at end
1967–1970
5.12%
16.2%
$116
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$195
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $125 by
1972, on its way to $195 in 1978; 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 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $195; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1978: $100 is worth $195 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1978/