$100 in 1919 is worth $201 in 1968,
because prices increased 101.2% over that period, an average of
1.44% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$201
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
101.2%
Average inflation rate
1.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$201
Price difference ($100 base)
$101
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1919 → 1968
$201
$100 in 1968 → 1919
$49.71
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1968
Between 1919 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 101.2%, which works out to an average of
1.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1968: the 1919 dollar
lost 50.3% of its purchasing power over
these 49 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 2.01: $1,000 becomes
$2,012, and $10,000 becomes $20,116.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1968
$1.00
$2.01
$5.00
$10.06
$10.00
$20.12
$20.00
$40.23
$50.00
$101
$100
$201
$500
$1,006
$1,000
$2,012
$5,000
$10,058
$10,000
$20,116
$100,000
$201,156
$1,000,000
$2,011,561
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1968
Between 1919 and 1968, food rose the most, up 89.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 48.3%, against 101.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.44%
$201
Food
1.32%
$190
Apparel
0.81%
$148
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.92
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$171
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$201
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $100 by
1943, on its way to $201 in 1968; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, 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 1919 had the buying
power of $201; 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 1919 to 1968: $100 is worth $201 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1968/