$100 in 1967 is worth $289 in 1982,
because prices increased 188.9% over that period, an average of
7.33% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$289
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
188.9%
Average inflation rate
7.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$289
Price difference ($100 base)
$189
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1967 → 1982
$289
$100 in 1982 → 1967
$34.61
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1982
Between 1967 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 188.9%, which works out to an average of
7.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.35 buys in 1982: the 1967 dollar
lost 65.4% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1982 at the same ratio, 2.89: $1,000 becomes
$2,889, and $10,000 becomes $28,892.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1982
$1.00
$2.89
$5.00
$14.45
$10.00
$28.89
$20.00
$57.78
$50.00
$144
$100
$289
$500
$1,445
$1,000
$2,889
$5,000
$14,446
$10,000
$28,892
$100,000
$288,922
$1,000,000
$2,889,222
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1982
Between 1967 and 1982, energy rose the most, up 316.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 91.8%, against 188.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.33%
$289
Energy
9.98%
$417
Medical care
8.24%
$328
Housing
7.94%
$315
Transportation
7.39%
$291
Food
7.25%
$286
Core (all items less food & energy)
7.00%
$276
Apparel
4.44%
$192
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1967, at end
1967–1970
5.12%
16.2%
$116
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$247
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$289
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $148 by
1974, on its way to $289 in 1982; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $289; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1982: $100 is worth $289 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1982/