$100 in 1936 is worth $250 in 1968,
because prices increased 150.4% over that period, an average of
2.91% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$250
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
150.4%
Average inflation rate
2.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$250
Price difference ($100 base)
$150
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1936 → 1968
$250
$100 in 1968 → 1936
$39.94
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1968
Between 1936 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 150.4%, which works out to an average of
2.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.40 buys in 1968: the 1936 dollar
lost 60.1% of its purchasing power over
these 32 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
Every 1936 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 2.50: $1,000 becomes
$2,504, and $10,000 becomes $25,036.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1968
$1.00
$2.50
$5.00
$12.52
$10.00
$25.04
$20.00
$50.07
$50.00
$125
$100
$250
$500
$1,252
$1,000
$2,504
$5,000
$12,518
$10,000
$25,036
$100,000
$250,360
$1,000,000
$2,503,597
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1968
Between 1936 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 193.1%, while transportation rose the least, up 139.9%, against 150.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.91%
$250
Medical care
3.42%
$293
Food
3.27%
$280
Apparel
2.98%
$256
Transportation
2.77%
$240
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1936: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1936 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1936–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1936, at end
1936–1940
0.18%
0.7%
$101
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$173
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$213
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$250
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $191 by
1952, on its way to $250 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 1936 had the buying
power of $250; 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 1936 to 1968: $100 is worth $250 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1968/