$100 in 1956 is worth $128 in 1968,
because prices increased 27.9% over that period, an average of
2.07% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$128
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
27.9%
Average inflation rate
2.07% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$128
Price difference ($100 base)
$27.94
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1956 → 1968
$128
$100 in 1968 → 1956
$78.16
What happened to prices between 1956 and 1968
Between 1956 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 27.9%, which works out to an average of
2.07% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1968: the 1956 dollar
lost 21.8% of its purchasing power over
these 12 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1956, a return to mild inflation after they had
fallen 0.4% in 1955, the only annual decline of the decade. The two years sat
in the calmest stretch of the postwar index, a lull between the Korean War
price surge earlier in the 1950s and the acceleration that would return in
the 1970s. Congress had already raised the wage floor into that calm: the
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, signed the previous August, took
effect March 1 and lifted the federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour, the first increase since 1950. Eisenhower signed a longer-lasting
commitment on June 29, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, funding 41,000 miles of
controlled-access highway at 90% federal cost to build the Interstate
System, the largest public-works program the country had undertaken. He won
a second term that November, carrying 41 states and about 57% of the
popular vote in a rematch against Adlai Stevenson. Abroad, the Suez Crisis
broke the calm on the supply side: Egypt nationalized the canal on July 26,
and after Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29 with British and French
forces following, the canal’s closure and damaged pipelines squeezed oil
shipments to Western Europe for months. Consumer prices stood 174.7% above
their 1913 level by 1956, up 94% since 1940
alone, even after a decade that had barely moved the index. First-class
postage held at 3 cents, unchanged since 1932.
Every 1956 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.28: $1,000 becomes
$1,279, and $10,000 becomes $12,794.
Amount in 1956
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.28
$5.00
$6.40
$10.00
$12.79
$20.00
$25.59
$50.00
$63.97
$100
$128
$500
$640
$1,000
$1,279
$5,000
$6,397
$10,000
$12,794
$100,000
$127,941
$1,000,000
$1,279,412
Inflation by spending category, 1956–1968
Between 1956 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 58.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 22.9%, against 27.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.07%
$128
Medical care
3.90%
$158
Transportation
2.27%
$131
Food
1.95%
$126
Apparel
1.73%
$123
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1956: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1956 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.14% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (2.04% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1956, at end
1956–1960
2.14%
8.8%
$109
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$128
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $111 by
1962, on its way to $128 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 the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $128; 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 1956 to 1968: $100 is worth $128 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1968/