$100 in 1923 is worth $204 in 1968,
because prices increased 103.5% over that period, an average of
1.59% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$204
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
103.5%
Average inflation rate
1.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$204
Price difference ($100 base)
$104
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1923 → 1968
$204
$100 in 1968 → 1923
$49.14
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1968
Between 1923 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 103.5%, which works out to an average of
1.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.49 buys in 1968: the 1923 dollar
lost 50.9% of its purchasing power over
these 45 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
Every 1923 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 2.04: $1,000 becomes
$2,035, and $10,000 becomes $20,351.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1968
$1.00
$2.04
$5.00
$10.18
$10.00
$20.35
$20.00
$40.70
$50.00
$102
$100
$204
$500
$1,018
$1,000
$2,035
$5,000
$10,175
$10,000
$20,351
$100,000
$203,509
$1,000,000
$2,035,088
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1968
Between 1923 and 1968, food rose the most, up 129.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 98.2%, against 103.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.59%
$204
Food
1.86%
$229
Apparel
1.53%
$198
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1923: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1923 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$173
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$204
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $105 by
1945, on its way to $204 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 9.9% in 1932, 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 1923 had the buying
power of $204; 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 1923 to 1968: $100 is worth $204 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1968/