$100 in 1943 is worth $201 in 1968,
because prices increased 101.2% over that period, an average of
2.84% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$201
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
101.2%
Average inflation rate
2.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$201
Price difference ($100 base)
$101
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1943 → 1968
$201
$100 in 1968 → 1943
$49.71
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1968
Between 1943 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 101.2%, which works out to an average of
2.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1968: the 1943 dollar
lost 50.3% of its purchasing power over
these 25 years.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1943 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 2.01: $1,000 becomes
$2,012, and $10,000 becomes $20,116.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1968
$1.00
$2.01
$5.00
$10.06
$10.00
$20.12
$20.00
$40.23
$50.00
$101
$100
$201
$500
$1,006
$1,000
$2,012
$5,000
$10,058
$10,000
$20,116
$100,000
$201,156
$1,000,000
$2,011,561
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1968
Between 1943 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 167.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 93.2%, against 101.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.84%
$201
Medical care
4.01%
$267
Transportation
3.12%
$216
Food
2.94%
$206
Apparel
2.67%
$193
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1943: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1943 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 4.85% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (2.04% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1943, at end
1943–1950
4.85%
39.3%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$171
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$201
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $155 by
1955, on its way to $201 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 1943 had the buying
power of $201; 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 1943 to 1968: $100 is worth $201 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1968/