$100 in 1948 is worth $144 in 1968,
because prices increased 44.4% over that period, an average of
1.85% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$144
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
44.4%
Average inflation rate
1.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$144
Price difference ($100 base)
$44.40
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1948 → 1968
$144
$100 in 1968 → 1948
$69.25
What happened to prices between 1948 and 1968
Between 1948 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 44.4%, which works out to an average of
1.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.69 buys in 1968: the 1948 dollar
lost 30.7% of its purchasing power over
these 20 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.1% in 1948, down slightly from 1947’s
14.4% but still the second straight year of sharp postwar inflation now
that wartime price controls were fully gone. Congress moved to stabilize a
different economy that April, passing the Economic Cooperation Act to fund
the plan Secretary of State George Marshall had proposed the year before:
more than $13 billion over four years to rebuild Western Europe and counter
Soviet influence. The Cold War turned tense closer to the plan’s target
that June, when Soviet forces cut off road and rail access to the
Western-controlled sectors of Berlin. American and British aircraft
responded almost immediately with an airlift of food, fuel, and supplies
that would keep the city running for nearly a year. Domestic politics
produced its own upset that November: nearly every poll and pundit had
predicted a Republican win, but Harry Truman defeated New York Governor
Thomas Dewey, handing the Chicago Tribune its famously wrong “Dewey Defeats
Truman” headline. Consumer prices finished the year 143.4% above their
1913 level and 40.9% above 1929’s
pre-Depression peak. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1948 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.44: $1,000 becomes
$1,444, and $10,000 becomes $14,440.
Amount in 1948
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.44
$5.00
$7.22
$10.00
$14.44
$20.00
$28.88
$50.00
$72.20
$100
$144
$500
$722
$1,000
$1,444
$5,000
$7,220
$10,000
$14,440
$100,000
$144,398
$1,000,000
$1,443,983
Inflation by spending category, 1948–1968
Between 1948 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 107.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 26.4%, against 44.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.85%
$144
Medical care
3.72%
$208
Transportation
2.58%
$167
Food
1.52%
$135
Apparel
1.18%
$126
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1948: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1948 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.08% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (0.00% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1948–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1948, at end
1948–1950
0.00%
0.0%
$100
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$123
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$144
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $120 by
1958, on its way to $144 in 1968; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 7.9% in 1951, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $144; 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 1948 to 1968: $100 is worth $144 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1968/