$100 in 1967 is worth $539 in 2002,
because prices increased 438.6% over that period, an average of
4.93% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$539
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
438.6%
Average inflation rate
4.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$539
Price difference ($100 base)
$439
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1967 → 2002
$539
$100 in 2002 → 1967
$18.57
What happened to prices between 1967 and 2002
Between 1967 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 438.6%, which works out to an average of
4.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.19 buys in 2002: the 1967 dollar
lost 81.4% of its purchasing power over
these 35 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 2002 at the same ratio, 5.39: $1,000 becomes
$5,386, and $10,000 becomes $53,862.
Amount in 1967
Value in 2002
$1.00
$5.39
$5.00
$26.93
$10.00
$53.86
$20.00
$108
$50.00
$269
$100
$539
$500
$2,693
$1,000
$5,386
$5,000
$26,931
$10,000
$53,862
$100,000
$538,623
$1,000,000
$5,386,228
Inflation by spending category, 1967–2002
Between 1967 and 2002, medical care rose the most, up 912.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 143.1%, against 438.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.93%
$539
Medical care
6.84%
$1,013
Housing
5.18%
$585
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.99%
$549
Food
4.80%
$517
Energy
4.77%
$511
Transportation
4.45%
$459
Apparel
2.57%
$243
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 2002
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.21% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–2002 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$516
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$539
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $322 by
1985, on its way to $539 in 2002; 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: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $539; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 2002: $100 is worth $539 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-2002/