$100 in 1967 is worth $687 in 2012,
because prices increased 587.4% over that period, an average of
4.38% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$687
in 2012
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
587.4%
Average inflation rate
4.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$687
Price difference ($100 base)
$587
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 2012
229.594
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 2012
2.07%
$100 in 1967 → 2012
$687
$100 in 2012 → 1967
$14.55
What happened to prices between 1967 and 2012
Between 1967 and 2012, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 229.594.
Cumulatively, prices increased 587.4%, which works out to an average of
4.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2012: the 1967 dollar
lost 85.5% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 2012 at the same ratio, 6.87: $1,000 becomes
$6,874, and $10,000 becomes $68,741.
Amount in 1967
Value in 2012
$1.00
$6.87
$5.00
$34.37
$10.00
$68.74
$20.00
$137
$50.00
$344
$100
$687
$500
$3,437
$1,000
$6,874
$5,000
$34,370
$10,000
$68,741
$100,000
$687,407
$1,000,000
$6,874,072
Inflation by spending category, 1967–2012
Between 1967 and 2012, medical care rose the most, up 1371.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 147.6%, against 587.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 2012, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.38%
$687
Medical care
6.16%
$1,471
Energy
5.33%
$1,034
Housing
4.49%
$723
Food
4.37%
$686
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.29%
$662
Transportation
4.26%
$653
Apparel
2.04%
$248
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 2012
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–2012 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$653
2010–2012
2.61%
5.3%
$687
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $371 by
1989, on its way to $687 in 2012; 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: 2012
In 2012, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $687; the year's average CPI of 229.594 is the level
behind every 2012 figure on this page.
2012 put a number on what the Federal Reserve was aiming for. In January the
Fed announced a 2% inflation target, and consumer prices rose 2.1% for the
year, almost exactly on it. Gasoline averaged $3.62 a gallon, another annual
high, but the pace of increase cooled from 2011’s 3.2% as food and core prices
grew more slowly.
The bigger story was housing and jobs. Home prices began to recover, and the
median new home sold for about $245,200, up from $227,200 the year before.
Median household income was $51,017. The federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 45 cents.
In September the Fed started a third round of asset purchases, this one with
no fixed end date, aimed at lowering unemployment. Overseas, the European
Central Bank’s July pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro calmed
bond markets. A summer drought across the Midwest drove corn and soybean
prices to records, a shock that reached grocery shelves only partly, because
most of what shoppers pay for food covers processing and transport rather than
raw crops.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 2012: $100 is worth $687 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-2012/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 2012. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-2012/