$100 in 1934 is worth $260 in 1968,
because prices increased 159.7% over that period, an average of
2.85% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$260
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
159.7%
Average inflation rate
2.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$260
Price difference ($100 base)
$160
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1934 → 1968
$260
$100 in 1968 → 1934
$38.51
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1968
Between 1934 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 159.7%, which works out to an average of
2.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.39 buys in 1968: the 1934 dollar
lost 61.5% of its purchasing power over
these 34 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1934, the first annual increase since 1926;
every year from 1927 through 1933 had been flat or falling,
so the turn marked a real break after eight years without a single gain.
Currency policy did some of the work. The Gold Reserve Act, signed January
30, formally devalued the dollar by raising the official price of gold from
$20.67 to $35 an ounce, part of the administration’s deliberate effort to
reflate prices after four straight years of deflation. Financial regulation
tightened at the same time: the Securities Exchange Act of June 6 created
the Securities and Exchange Commission to police stock exchanges and enforce
disclosure rules, a direct response to the speculation blamed for the 1929
crash. The recovery was fragile and unevenly felt, especially on the Great
Plains, where drought had turned overplowed farmland to dust. Over May 9-11,
high winds lifted an estimated 350 million tons of topsoil into the air,
darkening skies as far away as Washington and New York and giving city
readers who had never seen a wheat field a first glimpse of the disaster
building in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Consumer prices stood 35.4% above
their 1913 level, still well below the 1929 peak but rising
for the first time since the Depression began. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
Every 1934 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 2.60: $1,000 becomes
$2,597, and $10,000 becomes $25,970.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1968
$1.00
$2.60
$5.00
$12.99
$10.00
$25.97
$20.00
$51.94
$50.00
$130
$100
$260
$500
$1,299
$1,000
$2,597
$5,000
$12,985
$10,000
$25,970
$100,000
$259,701
$1,000,000
$2,597,015
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1968
Between 1934 and 1968, food rose the most, up 204.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 160.7%, against 159.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.85%
$260
Food
3.33%
$304
Apparel
2.86%
$261
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1934: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1934 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$180
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$221
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$260
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $180 by
1950, on its way to $260 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 2.1% in 1938, 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 1934 had the buying
power of $260; 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 1934 to 1968: $100 is worth $260 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1968/