$100 in 1967 is worth $354 in 1988,
because prices increased 254.2% over that period, an average of
6.21% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$354
in 1988
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
254.2%
Average inflation rate
6.21% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$354
Price difference ($100 base)
$254
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1988
118.3
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1988
4.14%
$100 in 1967 → 1988
$354
$100 in 1988 → 1967
$28.23
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1988
Between 1967 and 1988, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 118.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 254.2%, which works out to an average of
6.21% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.28 buys in 1988: the 1967 dollar
lost 71.8% of its purchasing power over
these 21 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 1988 at the same ratio, 3.54: $1,000 becomes
$3,542, and $10,000 becomes $35,419.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1988
$1.00
$3.54
$5.00
$17.71
$10.00
$35.42
$20.00
$70.84
$50.00
$177
$100
$354
$500
$1,771
$1,000
$3,542
$5,000
$17,710
$10,000
$35,419
$100,000
$354,192
$1,000,000
$3,541,916
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1988
Between 1967 and 1988, medical care rose the most, up 391.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 126.3%, against 254.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1988, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.21%
$354
Medical care
7.88%
$491
Housing
6.63%
$385
Energy
6.50%
$375
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.23%
$356
Food
6.10%
$347
Transportation
5.80%
$326
Apparel
3.97%
$226
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1988
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (4.62% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1988 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
1980–1988
4.62%
43.6%
$354
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $181 by
1977, on its way to $354 in 1988; 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 1.9% in 1986.
In 1988, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $354; the year's average CPI of 118.3 is the level
behind every 1988 figure on this page.
By 1988, the economic expansion that began in the ashes of the 1981-82
recession was in its sixth year, and the Federal Reserve was watching for
signs it had run too long. Inflation rose to 4.1%, up from 3.6% the year
before, while unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1974. Alan
Greenspan’s Fed responded by raising the federal funds rate through the
year, from about 6.5% to 8.5%, trying to cool demand before prices
accelerated the way they had in the 1970s. Households still felt the
difference between this expansion and the last one: gas held near 90 cents
a gallon, almost exactly its 1987 price, and median household income rose
to roughly $27,200. The one price that moved was postage, which rose from
22 to 25 cents in April, the fourth increase of the decade but a far
gentler pace than the string of increases in the late 1970s and early
1980s. In November, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency on
the strength of the expansion, promising in his nomination speech to hold
the line on taxes. Both the boom and that pledge would run into trouble
within two years, as the Fed’s rate increases helped tip the economy toward
the 1990-91 recession.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1988: $100 is worth $354 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1988/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1988. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1988/