$100 in 1920 is worth $174 in 1968,
because prices increased 74.0% over that period, an average of
1.16% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$174
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
74.0%
Average inflation rate
1.16% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$174
Price difference ($100 base)
$74.00
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1920 → 1968
$174
$100 in 1968 → 1920
$57.47
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1968
Between 1920 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 74.0%, which works out to an average of
1.16% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1968: the 1920 dollar
lost 42.5% of its purchasing power over
these 48 years.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1920 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.74: $1,000 becomes
$1,740, and $10,000 becomes $17,400.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.74
$5.00
$8.70
$10.00
$17.40
$20.00
$34.80
$50.00
$87.00
$100
$174
$500
$870
$1,000
$1,740
$5,000
$8,700
$10,000
$17,400
$100,000
$174,000
$1,000,000
$1,740,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1968
Between 1920 and 1968, food rose the most, up 68.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 24.6%, against 74.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.16%
$174
Food
1.09%
$168
Apparel
0.46%
$125
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1920: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1920 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$70.00
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$121
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$148
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$174
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $88.00 by
1944, on its way to $174 in 1968; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, 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 1920 had the buying
power of $174; 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 1920 to 1968: $100 is worth $174 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1968/