$100 in 1939 is worth $250 in 1968,
because prices increased 150.4% over that period, an average of
3.22% a year.
$100 in 1939 has
the same buying power as
$250
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
150.4%
Average inflation rate
3.22% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$250
Price difference ($100 base)
$150
CPI in 1939
13.9
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1939 → 1968
$250
$100 in 1968 → 1939
$39.94
What happened to prices between 1939 and 1968
Between 1939 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
3.22% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1939 bought what
$0.40 buys in 1968: the 1939 dollar
lost 60.1% of its purchasing power over
these 29 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
Every 1939 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 2.50: $1,000 becomes
$2,504, and $10,000 becomes $25,036.
Amount in 1939
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, 1939–1968
Between 1939 and 1968, food rose the most, up 199.2%, 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 1939
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1939 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.22%
$250
Food
3.85%
$299
Medical care
3.74%
$290
Apparel
3.19%
$249
Transportation
3.06%
$240
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1939: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1939 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1939–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1939, at end
1939–1940
0.72%
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 1939
$100 from 1939 had already become $192 by
1953, 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 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1939 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 1939 to 1968: $100 is worth $250 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1939 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-1968/