$100 in 1957 is worth $124 in 1968,
because prices increased 23.8% over that period, an average of
1.96% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$124
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
23.8%
Average inflation rate
1.96% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$124
Price difference ($100 base)
$23.84
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1957 → 1968
$124
$100 in 1968 → 1957
$80.75
What happened to prices between 1957 and 1968
Between 1957 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 23.8%, which works out to an average of
1.96% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.81 buys in 1968: the 1957 dollar
lost 19.3% of its purchasing power over
these 11 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
Every 1957 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.24: $1,000 becomes
$1,238, and $10,000 becomes $12,384.
Amount in 1957
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.24
$5.00
$6.19
$10.00
$12.38
$20.00
$24.77
$50.00
$61.92
$100
$124
$500
$619
$1,000
$1,238
$5,000
$6,192
$10,000
$12,384
$100,000
$123,843
$1,000,000
$1,238,434
Inflation by spending category, 1957–1968
Between 1957 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 51.8%, while energy rose the least, up 12.6%, against 23.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.96%
$124
Medical care
3.87%
$152
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.09%
$126
Transportation
1.96%
$124
Food
1.84%
$122
Apparel
1.72%
$121
Energy
1.08%
$113
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.04% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.75% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1957–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1957, at end
1957–1960
1.75%
5.3%
$105
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$124
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $107 by
1962, on its way to $124 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 1957 had the buying
power of $124; 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 1957 to 1968: $100 is worth $124 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1968/