$100 in 1967 is worth $642 in 2009,
because prices increased 542.3% over that period, an average of
4.53% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$642
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
542.3%
Average inflation rate
4.53% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$642
Price difference ($100 base)
$542
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1967 → 2009
$642
$100 in 2009 → 1967
$15.57
What happened to prices between 1967 and 2009
Between 1967 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 542.3%, which works out to an average of
4.53% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.16 buys in 2009: the 1967 dollar
lost 84.4% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 2009 at the same ratio, 6.42: $1,000 becomes
$6,423, and $10,000 becomes $64,233.
Amount in 1967
Value in 2009
$1.00
$6.42
$5.00
$32.12
$10.00
$64.23
$20.00
$128
$50.00
$321
$100
$642
$500
$3,212
$1,000
$6,423
$5,000
$32,116
$10,000
$64,233
$100,000
$642,326
$1,000,000
$6,423,263
Inflation by spending category, 1967–2009
Between 1967 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 1232.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 135.4%, against 542.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.53%
$642
Medical care
6.36%
$1,332
Energy
5.11%
$811
Housing
4.76%
$705
Food
4.52%
$639
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.49%
$632
Transportation
4.09%
$538
Apparel
2.06%
$235
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$642
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $340 by
1987, on its way to $642 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $642; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 2009: $100 is worth $642 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-2009/