$100 in 1969 is worth $114 in 1972,
because prices increased 13.9% over that period, an average of
4.43% a year.
$100 in 1969 has
the same buying power as
$114
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
13.9%
Average inflation rate
4.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$114
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.90
CPI in 1969
36.7
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1969 → 1972
$114
$100 in 1972 → 1969
$87.80
What happened to prices between 1969 and 1972
Between 1969 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 36.7 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 13.9%, which works out to an average of
4.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1969 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1972: the 1969 dollar
lost 12.2% of its purchasing power over
these 3 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 1972 at the same ratio, 1.14: $1,000 becomes
$1,139, and $10,000 becomes $11,390.
Amount in 1969
Value in 1972
$1.00
$1.14
$5.00
$5.69
$10.00
$11.39
$20.00
$22.78
$50.00
$56.95
$100
$114
$500
$569
$1,000
$1,139
$5,000
$5,695
$10,000
$11,390
$100,000
$113,896
$1,000,000
$1,138,965
Inflation by spending category, 1969–1972
Between 1969 and 1972, medical care rose the most, up 16.9%, while energy rose the least, up 9.7%, against 13.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1969
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1969 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.43%
$114
Medical care
5.35%
$117
Housing
5.04%
$116
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.64%
$115
Food
4.30%
$113
Transportation
3.78%
$112
Apparel
3.13%
$110
Energy
3.13%
$110
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1969: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1969 to 1972
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 5.72% a year, and slowest in the 1970s (3.79% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1969–1972 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1969, at end
1969–1970
5.72%
5.7%
$106
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$114
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1969
$100 from 1969 had already become $106 by
1970, on its way to $114 in 1972; 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 3.2% in 1972.
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1969 had the buying
power of $114; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1969 to 1972: $100 is worth $114 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1969 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-1972/