$100 in 1968 is worth $116 in 1971,
because prices increased 16.4% over that period, an average of
5.19% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$116
in 1971
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
16.4%
Average inflation rate
5.19% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$116
Price difference ($100 base)
$16.38
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1971
40.5
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
$100 in 1968 → 1971
$116
$100 in 1971 → 1968
$85.93
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1971
Between 1968 and 1971, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 40.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 16.4%, which works out to an average of
5.19% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.86 buys in 1971: the 1968 dollar
lost 14.1% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
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.
Every 1968 amount converts to 1971 at the same ratio, 1.16: $1,000 becomes
$1,164, and $10,000 becomes $11,638.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1971
$1.00
$1.16
$5.00
$5.82
$10.00
$11.64
$20.00
$23.28
$50.00
$58.19
$100
$116
$500
$582
$1,000
$1,164
$5,000
$5,819
$10,000
$11,638
$100,000
$116,379
$1,000,000
$1,163,793
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1971
Between 1968 and 1971, medical care rose the most, up 20.7%, while energy rose the least, up 9.5%, against 16.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1971, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.19%
$116
Medical care
6.48%
$121
Housing
5.90%
$119
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.56%
$118
Transportation
4.82%
$115
Food
4.60%
$114
Apparel
4.40%
$114
Energy
3.07%
$110
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1971
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 5.59% a year, and slowest in the 1970s (4.38% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1971 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1971
4.38%
4.4%
$116
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $105 by
1969, on its way to $116 in 1971; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.7% in 1970, and the smallest rise was 4.4% in 1971.
In 1971, prices rose 4.4% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $116; the year's average CPI of 40.5 is the level
behind every 1971 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.4% in 1971, down from 1970’s 5.7% as
the recession that started in December 1969 finally cooled demand. The bigger
economic story came that August 15, when President Nixon closed the “gold
window” that let foreign governments exchange dollars for gold, ending the
Bretton Woods system that had anchored the dollar since World War II. The
same address announced a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, the first
peacetime controls the country had seen, an attempt to break inflationary
expectations without the slower grind of tighter money. The “Nixon Shock,” as
it came to be known, let the dollar float against other currencies for the
first time and set the stage for a wage-and-price-control regime that would
run in various forms into 1973. Politically, the country lowered its voting
age that year: the 26th Amendment, ratified July 1, extended the vote to
18-year-olds, capping a campaign built on the argument that men old enough to
be drafted to Vietnam were old enough to vote for the people who sent them.
The Postal Service, independent since 1970’s reorganization, raised
first-class postage from 6 to 8 cents that May. A median household earned
$9,028 in 1971, up from $8,734 the year before, while gas held near 36 cents
a gallon and a new home sold for a median $25,200. Consumer prices stood
309.1% above their 1913 level by year’s end, still years away
from the double-digit inflation the controls were meant to prevent.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1971: $100 is worth $116 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1971/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1971. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1971/