$100 in 1931 is worth $229 in 1968,
because prices increased 128.9% over that period, an average of
2.26% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$229
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
128.9%
Average inflation rate
2.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$229
Price difference ($100 base)
$129
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1931 → 1968
$229
$100 in 1968 → 1931
$43.68
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1968
Between 1931 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 128.9%, which works out to an average of
2.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.44 buys in 1968: the 1931 dollar
lost 56.3% of its purchasing power over
these 37 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
Every 1931 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 2.29: $1,000 becomes
$2,289, and $10,000 becomes $22,895.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1968
$1.00
$2.29
$5.00
$11.45
$10.00
$22.89
$20.00
$45.79
$50.00
$114
$100
$229
$500
$1,145
$1,000
$2,289
$5,000
$11,447
$10,000
$22,895
$100,000
$228,947
$1,000,000
$2,289,474
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1968
Between 1931 and 1968, food rose the most, up 173.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 144.1%, against 128.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.26%
$229
Food
2.76%
$274
Apparel
2.44%
$244
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1931: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1931 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$159
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$195
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$229
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $157 by
1949, on its way to $229 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 1931 had the buying
power of $229; 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 1931 to 1968: $100 is worth $229 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1968/