$100 in 1944 is worth $198 in 1968,
because prices increased 97.7% over that period, an average of
2.88% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$198
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
97.7%
Average inflation rate
2.88% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$198
Price difference ($100 base)
$97.73
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1944 → 1968
$198
$100 in 1968 → 1944
$50.57
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1968
Between 1944 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 97.7%, which works out to an average of
2.88% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.51 buys in 1968: the 1944 dollar
lost 49.4% of its purchasing power over
these 24 years.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1944 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.98: $1,000 becomes
$1,977, and $10,000 becomes $19,773.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.98
$5.00
$9.89
$10.00
$19.77
$20.00
$39.55
$50.00
$98.86
$100
$198
$500
$989
$1,000
$1,977
$5,000
$9,886
$10,000
$19,773
$100,000
$197,727
$1,000,000
$1,977,273
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1968
Between 1944 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 157.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 80.2%, against 97.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.88%
$198
Medical care
4.02%
$258
Transportation
3.26%
$216
Food
3.12%
$209
Apparel
2.48%
$180
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1944: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1944 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.38% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (2.04% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1944, at end
1944–1950
5.38%
36.9%
$137
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$168
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$198
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $155 by
1956, on its way to $198 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 1944 had the buying
power of $198; 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 1944 to 1968: $100 is worth $198 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1968/