$100 in 1913 is worth $352 in 1968,
because prices increased 251.5% over that period, an average of
2.31% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$352
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
251.5%
Average inflation rate
2.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$352
Price difference ($100 base)
$252
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1913 → 1968
$352
$100 in 1968 → 1913
$28.45
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1968
Between 1913 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 251.5%, which works out to an average of
2.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.28 buys in 1968: the 1913 dollar
lost 71.6% of its purchasing power over
these 55 years.
1913 is where this site’s price history begins, because it’s where the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ own consumer price data begins. The CPI wasn’t published in real time back then;
the BLS built the earliest index retroactively from retail price records collected starting
in 1913, which makes every dollar figure on this site ultimately anchored to that year’s
prices. It was also the year the machinery of modern federal economic policy was built. The
16th Amendment, ratified in February, cleared the constitutional path for a federal income
tax, and the Revenue Act that followed in October imposed a top rate of just 7% on income
above $500,000, a narrow tax that would later be reshaped into the broad-based system that
funds the government today. In December, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating
the central bank that would eventually take on fighting inflation as one of its core jobs,
including the 19%-plus interest rates it deployed against the 1970s and early 1980s
price surge. Consumer life in 1913 was correspondingly simple by later
standards: a first-class stamp cost 2 cents, a price that held from 1885 all the way to
1917, and the Ford Motor Company introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park
plant that year, a manufacturing breakthrough that would spend the next decade driving down
the cost of a car faster than prices elsewhere were rising.
Every 1913 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 3.52: $1,000 becomes
$3,515, and $10,000 becomes $35,152.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1968
$1.00
$3.52
$5.00
$17.58
$10.00
$35.15
$20.00
$70.30
$50.00
$176
$100
$352
$500
$1,758
$1,000
$3,515
$5,000
$17,576
$10,000
$35,152
$100,000
$351,515
$1,000,000
$3,515,152
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1968
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.31%
$352
Food
2.32%
$353
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1913: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), apparel (1914–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1913 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$169
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$141
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$243
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$299
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$352
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $148 by
1941, on its way to $352 in 1968; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1968
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $352; the year's average CPI of 34.8 is the level
behind every 1968 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.2% in 1968, up sharply from 1967’s
3.1% and the fastest pace in 17 years, as Vietnam War spending and a tight
labor market pushed inflation higher despite the Federal Reserve’s
earlier tightening. The year was marked by political violence: Martin
Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis on April
4, touching off rioting in more than 100 cities, and Robert F. Kennedy was
shot in Los Angeles on June 5, moments after winning California’s
Democratic presidential primary, and died the next day. Washington tried
to answer the inflation problem directly that June 28, when Congress
passed a 10% income tax surcharge, the Revenue and Expenditure Control
Act, temporarily raising taxes and cutting spending to cool an economy
overheated by war and Great Society outlays; prices kept accelerating
anyway. The cost of living rose in smaller, more visible ways too:
first-class postage climbed to 6 cents that January 7, and the minimum
wage rose to $1.60 an hour that February 1, the final step of the
increase Congress had set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1968 251.5% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1968: $100 is worth $352 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1968/