$100 in 1926 is worth $197 in 1968,
because prices increased 96.6% over that period, an average of
1.62% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$197
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
96.6%
Average inflation rate
1.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$197
Price difference ($100 base)
$96.61
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1926 → 1968
$197
$100 in 1968 → 1926
$50.86
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1968
Between 1926 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 96.6%, which works out to an average of
1.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.51 buys in 1968: the 1926 dollar
lost 49.1% of its purchasing power over
these 42 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
Every 1926 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.97: $1,000 becomes
$1,966, and $10,000 becomes $19,661.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.97
$5.00
$9.83
$10.00
$19.66
$20.00
$39.32
$50.00
$98.31
$100
$197
$500
$983
$1,000
$1,966
$5,000
$9,831
$10,000
$19,661
$100,000
$196,610
$1,000,000
$1,966,102
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1968
Between 1926 and 1968, food rose the most, up 107.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 107.3%, against 96.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.62%
$197
Food
1.75%
$208
Apparel
1.75%
$207
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1926: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1926 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 1926–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$79.10
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$136
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$167
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$197
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $110 by
1946, on its way to $197 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 1926 had the buying
power of $197; 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 1926 to 1968: $100 is worth $197 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1968/