$100 in 1967 is worth $444 in 1994,
because prices increased 343.7% over that period, an average of
5.67% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$444
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
343.7%
Average inflation rate
5.67% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$444
Price difference ($100 base)
$344
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1967 → 1994
$444
$100 in 1994 → 1967
$22.54
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1994
Between 1967 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 343.7%, which works out to an average of
5.67% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.23 buys in 1994: the 1967 dollar
lost 77.5% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 1994 at the same ratio, 4.44: $1,000 becomes
$4,437, and $10,000 becomes $44,371.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1994
$1.00
$4.44
$5.00
$22.19
$10.00
$44.37
$20.00
$88.74
$50.00
$222
$100
$444
$500
$2,219
$1,000
$4,437
$5,000
$22,186
$10,000
$44,371
$100,000
$443,713
$1,000,000
$4,437,126
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1994
Between 1967 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 648.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 161.6%, against 343.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.67%
$444
Medical care
7.74%
$748
Housing
5.90%
$470
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.74%
$451
Energy
5.64%
$439
Food
5.49%
$423
Transportation
5.30%
$403
Apparel
3.63%
$262
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1994
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.19% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1994 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$391
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$444
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $247 by
1980, on its way to $444 in 1994; 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 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $444; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1994: $100 is worth $444 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1994/