$100 in 1965 is worth $110 in 1968,
because prices increased 10.5% over that period, an average of
3.38% a year.
$100 in 1965 has
the same buying power as
$110
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
10.5%
Average inflation rate
3.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$110
Price difference ($100 base)
$10.48
CPI in 1965
31.5
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1965 → 1968
$110
$100 in 1968 → 1965
$90.52
What happened to prices between 1965 and 1968
Between 1965 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 31.5 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 10.5%, which works out to an average of
3.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1965 bought what
$0.91 buys in 1968: the 1965 dollar
lost 9.5% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
Every 1965 amount converts to 1968 at the same ratio, 1.10: $1,000 becomes
$1,105, and $10,000 becomes $11,048.
Amount in 1965
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.10
$5.00
$5.52
$10.00
$11.05
$20.00
$22.10
$50.00
$55.24
$100
$110
$500
$552
$1,000
$1,105
$5,000
$5,524
$10,000
$11,048
$100,000
$110,476
$1,000,000
$1,104,762
Inflation by spending category, 1965–1968
Between 1965 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 18.7%, while energy rose the least, up 5.7%, against 10.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1965
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1965 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.38%
$110
Medical care
5.87%
$119
Apparel
3.96%
$112
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.54%
$111
Food
3.11%
$110
Transportation
2.45%
$108
Energy
1.86%
$106
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1965: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1965
$100 from 1965 had already become $103 by
1966, on its way to $110 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 2.9% in 1966.
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1965 had the buying
power of $110; 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 1965 to 1968: $100 is worth $110 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1965 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1965-to-1968/