$100 in 1969 is worth $178 in 1978,
because prices increased 77.7% over that period, an average of
6.59% a year.
$100 in 1969 has
the same buying power as
$178
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
77.7%
Average inflation rate
6.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$178
Price difference ($100 base)
$77.66
CPI in 1969
36.7
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1969 → 1978
$178
$100 in 1978 → 1969
$56.29
What happened to prices between 1969 and 1978
Between 1969 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 36.7 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 77.7%, which works out to an average of
6.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1969 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1978: the 1969 dollar
lost 43.7% of its purchasing power over
these 9 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 1978 at the same ratio, 1.78: $1,000 becomes
$1,777, and $10,000 becomes $17,766.
Amount in 1969
Value in 1978
$1.00
$1.78
$5.00
$8.88
$10.00
$17.77
$20.00
$35.53
$50.00
$88.83
$100
$178
$500
$888
$1,000
$1,777
$5,000
$8,883
$10,000
$17,766
$100,000
$177,657
$1,000,000
$1,776,567
Inflation by spending category, 1969–1978
Between 1969 and 1978, energy rose the most, up 111.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 43.3%, against 77.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1969
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1969 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.59%
$178
Energy
8.69%
$212
Food
7.65%
$194
Medical care
7.62%
$194
Housing
6.98%
$184
Transportation
6.27%
$173
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.11%
$171
Apparel
4.08%
$143
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1969: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1969 to 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1969–1978 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1969, at end
1969–1970
5.72%
5.7%
$106
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$178
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1969
$100 from 1969 had already become $121 by
1973, on its way to $178 in 1978; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1969 had the buying
power of $178; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1969 to 1978: $100 is worth $178 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1969 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1969-to-1978/