$100 in 1967 is worth $298 in 1983,
because prices increased 198.2% over that period, an average of
7.07% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$298
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
198.2%
Average inflation rate
7.07% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$298
Price difference ($100 base)
$198
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1967 → 1983
$298
$100 in 1983 → 1967
$33.53
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1983
Between 1967 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 198.2%, which works out to an average of
7.07% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.34 buys in 1983: the 1967 dollar
lost 66.5% of its purchasing power over
these 16 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 1983 at the same ratio, 2.98: $1,000 becomes
$2,982, and $10,000 becomes $29,820.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1983
$1.00
$2.98
$5.00
$14.91
$10.00
$29.82
$20.00
$59.64
$50.00
$149
$100
$298
$500
$1,491
$1,000
$2,982
$5,000
$14,910
$10,000
$29,820
$100,000
$298,204
$1,000,000
$2,982,036
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1983
Between 1967 and 1983, energy rose the most, up 319.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 96.5%, against 198.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.07%
$298
Energy
9.38%
$420
Medical care
8.27%
$357
Housing
7.60%
$323
Transportation
7.07%
$298
Food
6.92%
$291
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.81%
$287
Apparel
4.31%
$196
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1983
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1983 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
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$298
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $161 by
1975, on its way to $298 in 1983; 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 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $298; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1983: $100 is worth $298 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1983/