$100 in 1916 is worth $319 in 1968,
because prices increased 219.3% over that period, an average of
2.26% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$319
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
219.3%
Average inflation rate
2.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$319
Price difference ($100 base)
$219
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1916 → 1968
$319
$100 in 1968 → 1916
$31.32
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1968
Between 1916 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 219.3%, which works out to an average of
2.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.31 buys in 1968: the 1916 dollar
lost 68.7% of its purchasing power over
these 52 years.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
Every 1916 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 3.19: $1,000 becomes
$3,193, and $10,000 becomes $31,927.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1968
$1.00
$3.19
$5.00
$15.96
$10.00
$31.93
$20.00
$63.85
$50.00
$160
$100
$319
$500
$1,596
$1,000
$3,193
$5,000
$15,963
$10,000
$31,927
$100,000
$319,266
$1,000,000
$3,192,661
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1968
Between 1916 and 1968, apparel rose the most, up 219.6%, while food rose the least, up 212.4%, against 219.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.26%
$319
Apparel
2.26%
$320
Food
2.21%
$312
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1916: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1916 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$153
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$128
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$221
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$272
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$319
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $150 by
1942, on its way to $319 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 1916 had the buying
power of $319; 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 1916 to 1968: $100 is worth $319 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1968/