$100 in 1954 is worth $129 in 1968,
because prices increased 29.4% over that period, an average of
1.86% a year.
$100 in 1954 has
the same buying power as
$129
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
29.4%
Average inflation rate
1.86% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$129
Price difference ($100 base)
$29.37
CPI in 1954
26.9
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1954
0.75%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1954 → 1968
$129
$100 in 1968 → 1954
$77.30
What happened to prices between 1954 and 1968
Between 1954 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.9 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 29.4%, which works out to an average of
1.86% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1954 bought what
$0.77 buys in 1968: the 1954 dollar
lost 22.7% of its purchasing power over
these 14 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1954, extending 1953’s 0.8%
slowdown even as the economy tipped into recession, an early example of
prices continuing to rise through a downturn rather than falling with it.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that recession from July
1953 to May 1954, as defense spending fell after the Korean War armistice
and the tighter monetary policy of the year before worked its way through
the economy. The Supreme Court reshaped a different part of American life
that spring: its unanimous May 17 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
held that “separate but equal” public schools violated the Constitution,
overturning the legal basis for segregated education. Washington also
closed the book on a different fight that year. Following the televised
Army-McCarthy hearings that spring, the Senate voted 67 to 22 on December
2 to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy’s conduct, ending his dominance of
American politics after four years of anti-communist investigations.
Consumer prices finished 1954 171.7% above their 1913
level, essentially flat with 1953 as the mild recession
held the cost of living in check. First-class postage held at 3 cents,
and the minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
Every 1954 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.29: $1,000 becomes
$1,294, and $10,000 becomes $12,937.
Amount in 1954
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.29
$5.00
$6.47
$10.00
$12.94
$20.00
$25.87
$50.00
$64.68
$100
$129
$500
$647
$1,000
$1,294
$5,000
$6,468
$10,000
$12,937
$100,000
$129,368
$1,000,000
$1,293,680
Inflation by spending category, 1954–1968
Between 1954 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 68.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 24.6%, against 29.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1954
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1954 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.86%
$129
Medical care
3.77%
$168
Transportation
1.97%
$131
Food
1.62%
$125
Apparel
1.58%
$125
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1954: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1954 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.04% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.61% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1954–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1954, at end
1954–1960
1.61%
10.0%
$110
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$129
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1954
$100 from 1954 had already become $111 by
1961, on its way to $129 in 1968; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 4.2% in 1968, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1954 had the buying
power of $129; 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 1954 to 1968: $100 is worth $129 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1954 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1968/