$100 in 1967 is worth $217 in 1979,
because prices increased 117.4% over that period, an average of
6.68% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$217
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
117.4%
Average inflation rate
6.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$217
Price difference ($100 base)
$117
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1967 → 1979
$217
$100 in 1979 → 1967
$46.01
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1979
Between 1967 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 117.4%, which works out to an average of
6.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.46 buys in 1979: the 1967 dollar
lost 54.0% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1979 at the same ratio, 2.17: $1,000 becomes
$2,174, and $10,000 becomes $21,737.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1979
$1.00
$2.17
$5.00
$10.87
$10.00
$21.74
$20.00
$43.47
$50.00
$109
$100
$217
$500
$1,087
$1,000
$2,174
$5,000
$10,868
$10,000
$21,737
$100,000
$217,365
$1,000,000
$2,173,653
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1979
Between 1967 and 1979, energy rose the most, up 176.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 66.5%, against 117.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.68%
$217
Energy
8.83%
$276
Medical care
7.54%
$239
Food
7.35%
$234
Housing
7.09%
$228
Transportation
6.45%
$212
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.26%
$207
Apparel
4.34%
$166
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1979 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1967, at end
1967–1970
5.12%
16.2%
$116
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$217
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $133 by
1973, on its way to $217 in 1979; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.3% in 1979, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $217; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1979: $100 is worth $217 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1979/