$100 in 1967 is worth $371 in 1989,
because prices increased 271.3% over that period, an average of
6.14% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$371
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
271.3%
Average inflation rate
6.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$371
Price difference ($100 base)
$271
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1967 → 1989
$371
$100 in 1989 → 1967
$26.94
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1989
Between 1967 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 271.3%, which works out to an average of
6.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.27 buys in 1989: the 1967 dollar
lost 73.1% of its purchasing power over
these 22 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 1989 at the same ratio, 3.71: $1,000 becomes
$3,713, and $10,000 becomes $37,126.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1989
$1.00
$3.71
$5.00
$18.56
$10.00
$37.13
$20.00
$74.25
$50.00
$186
$100
$371
$500
$1,856
$1,000
$3,713
$5,000
$18,563
$10,000
$37,126
$100,000
$371,257
$1,000,000
$3,712,575
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1989
Between 1967 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 429.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 132.5%, against 271.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.14%
$371
Medical care
7.87%
$529
Housing
6.50%
$399
Energy
6.46%
$396
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.15%
$372
Food
6.09%
$367
Transportation
5.76%
$343
Apparel
3.91%
$233
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (4.65% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$371
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $195 by
1978, on its way to $371 in 1989; 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 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $371; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1989: $100 is worth $371 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1989/