$100 in 1968 is worth $120 in 1972,
because prices increased 20.1% over that period, an average of
4.69% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$120
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
20.1%
Average inflation rate
4.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$120
Price difference ($100 base)
$20.11
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1968 → 1972
$120
$100 in 1972 → 1968
$83.25
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1972
Between 1968 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 20.1%, which works out to an average of
4.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.83 buys in 1972: the 1968 dollar
lost 16.7% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1972 at the same ratio, 1.20: $1,000 becomes
$1,201, and $10,000 becomes $12,011.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1972
$1.00
$1.20
$5.00
$6.01
$10.00
$12.01
$20.00
$24.02
$50.00
$60.06
$100
$120
$500
$601
$1,000
$1,201
$5,000
$6,006
$10,000
$12,011
$100,000
$120,115
$1,000,000
$1,201,149
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1972
Between 1968 and 1972, medical care rose the most, up 24.7%, while energy rose the least, up 12.4%, against 20.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.69%
$120
Medical care
5.68%
$125
Housing
5.34%
$123
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.93%
$121
Food
4.50%
$119
Transportation
3.85%
$116
Apparel
3.78%
$116
Energy
2.96%
$112
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1972
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 5.59% a year, and slowest in the 1970s (3.79% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1972 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$120
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $111 by
1970, on its way to $120 in 1972; 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 3.2% in 1972.
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $120; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1972: $100 is worth $120 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1972/