$100 in 1945 is worth $193 in 1968,
because prices increased 93.3% over that period, an average of
2.91% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$193
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
93.3%
Average inflation rate
2.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$193
Price difference ($100 base)
$93.33
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1945 → 1968
$193
$100 in 1968 → 1945
$51.72
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1968
Between 1945 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 93.3%, which works out to an average of
2.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.52 buys in 1968: the 1945 dollar
lost 48.3% of its purchasing power over
these 23 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1945 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.93: $1,000 becomes
$1,933, and $10,000 becomes $19,333.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.93
$5.00
$9.67
$10.00
$19.33
$20.00
$38.67
$50.00
$96.67
$100
$193
$500
$967
$1,000
$1,933
$5,000
$9,667
$10,000
$19,333
$100,000
$193,333
$1,000,000
$1,933,333
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1968
Between 1945 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 151.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 71.0%, against 93.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.91%
$193
Medical care
4.09%
$251
Transportation
3.40%
$216
Food
3.15%
$204
Apparel
2.36%
$171
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1945: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1945 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.01% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (2.04% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1945, at end
1945–1950
6.01%
33.9%
$134
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$164
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$193
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $151 by
1956, on its way to $193 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 1945 had the buying
power of $193; 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 1945 to 1968: $100 is worth $193 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1968/