$100 in 1969 is worth $110 in 1971,
because prices increased 10.4% over that period, an average of
5.05% a year.
$100 in 1969 has
the same buying power as
$110
in 1971
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
10.4%
Average inflation rate
5.05% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$110
Price difference ($100 base)
$10.35
CPI in 1969
36.7
CPI in 1971
40.5
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
$100 in 1969 → 1971
$110
$100 in 1971 → 1969
$90.62
What happened to prices between 1969 and 1971
Between 1969 and 1971, the Consumer Price Index went from 36.7 to 40.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 10.4%, which works out to an average of
5.05% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1969 bought what
$0.91 buys in 1971: the 1969 dollar
lost 9.4% of its purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
Every 1969 amount converts to 1971 at the same ratio, 1.10: $1,000 becomes
$1,104, and $10,000 becomes $11,035.
Amount in 1969
Value in 1971
$1.00
$1.10
$5.00
$5.52
$10.00
$11.04
$20.00
$22.07
$50.00
$55.18
$100
$110
$500
$552
$1,000
$1,104
$5,000
$5,518
$10,000
$11,035
$100,000
$110,354
$1,000,000
$1,103,542
Inflation by spending category, 1969–1971
Between 1969 and 1971, medical care rose the most, up 13.2%, while energy rose the least, up 6.9%, against 10.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1969
spending costs in 1971, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1969 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.05%
$110
Medical care
6.38%
$113
Housing
5.72%
$112
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.45%
$111
Transportation
5.19%
$111
Food
4.35%
$109
Apparel
3.72%
$108
Energy
3.37%
$107
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1969: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1969 to 1971
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 5.72% a year, and slowest in the 1970s (4.38% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1969–1971 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1969, at end
1969–1970
5.72%
5.7%
$106
1970–1971
4.38%
4.4%
$110
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1969
$100 from 1969 had already become $106 by
1970, on its way to $110 in 1971; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.7% in 1970, and the smallest rise was 4.4% in 1971.
In 1971, prices rose 4.4% and $100 from 1969 had the buying
power of $110; the year's average CPI of 40.5 is the level
behind every 1971 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.4% in 1971, down from 1970’s 5.7% as
the recession that started in December 1969 finally cooled demand. The bigger
economic story came that August 15, when President Nixon closed the “gold
window” that let foreign governments exchange dollars for gold, ending the
Bretton Woods system that had anchored the dollar since World War II. The
same address announced a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, the first
peacetime controls the country had seen, an attempt to break inflationary
expectations without the slower grind of tighter money. The “Nixon Shock,” as
it came to be known, let the dollar float against other currencies for the
first time and set the stage for a wage-and-price-control regime that would
run in various forms into 1973. Politically, the country lowered its voting
age that year: the 26th Amendment, ratified July 1, extended the vote to
18-year-olds, capping a campaign built on the argument that men old enough to
be drafted to Vietnam were old enough to vote for the people who sent them.
The Postal Service, independent since 1970’s reorganization, raised
first-class postage from 6 to 8 cents that May. A median household earned
$9,028 in 1971, up from $8,734 the year before, while gas held near 36 cents
a gallon and a new home sold for a median $25,200. Consumer prices stood
309.1% above their 1913 level by year’s end, still years away
from the double-digit inflation the controls were meant to prevent.
MLA: “Inflation from 1969 to 1971: $100 is worth $110 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-1971/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1969 to 1971. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-1971/