$100 in 1967 is worth $499 in 1999,
because prices increased 398.8% over that period, an average of
5.15% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$499
in 1999
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
398.8%
Average inflation rate
5.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$499
Price difference ($100 base)
$399
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1999
166.6
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1999
2.21%
$100 in 1967 → 1999
$499
$100 in 1999 → 1967
$20.05
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1999
Between 1967 and 1999, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 166.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 398.8%, which works out to an average of
5.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.20 buys in 1999: the 1967 dollar
lost 80.0% of its purchasing power over
these 32 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 1999 at the same ratio, 4.99: $1,000 becomes
$4,988, and $10,000 becomes $49,880.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1999
$1.00
$4.99
$5.00
$24.94
$10.00
$49.88
$20.00
$99.76
$50.00
$249
$100
$499
$500
$2,494
$1,000
$4,988
$5,000
$24,940
$10,000
$49,880
$100,000
$498,802
$1,000,000
$4,988,024
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1999
Between 1967 and 1999, medical care rose the most, up 788.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 157.5%, against 398.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1999, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.15%
$499
Medical care
7.07%
$889
Housing
5.36%
$532
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.22%
$510
Food
5.03%
$481
Energy
4.80%
$448
Transportation
4.69%
$434
Apparel
3.00%
$257
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1999
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (2.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1999 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
1990–1999
2.73%
27.5%
$499
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $298 by
1983, on its way to $499 in 1999; 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 1.6% in 1998.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1999
In 1999, prices rose 2.2% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $499; the year's average CPI of 166.6 is the level
behind every 1999 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $40,700 in 1999, gas averaged $1.17 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $161,000. Inflation ran at 2.2% for the year, ticking back up from 1998’s decade low
as oil prices recovered from their collapse. The decade closed with two changes to the financial
system that would shape the one after it: on January 1, the euro launched as an accounting
currency across 11 European countries, trading alongside national currencies like the French
franc and German mark ahead of physical cash in 2002, and in November, Congress passed the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, tearing down the Depression-era wall between commercial banks, investment
banks, and insurers. Stock markets, meanwhile, were absorbed in a boom of their own: the Nasdaq
surged through the year on soaring internet-stock valuations, and the Federal Reserve raised
interest rates three times in the second half of 1999 partly to cool the exuberance, even as it
pumped extra liquidity into the banking system to guard against any disruption from the Y2K
rollover. A first-class stamp cost 33 cents. Inflation had spent the decade falling from 1990’s
5.4% peak to averages closer to 2-3%, and 1999 closed it out almost exactly where the 1990s as a
whole had settled.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1999: $100 is worth $499 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1999/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1999. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1999/