$100 in 1968 is worth $128 in 1973,
because prices increased 27.6% over that period, an average of
4.99% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$128
in 1973
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
27.6%
Average inflation rate
4.99% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$128
Price difference ($100 base)
$27.59
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1973
44.4
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
$100 in 1968 → 1973
$128
$100 in 1973 → 1968
$78.38
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1973
Between 1968 and 1973, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 44.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 27.6%, which works out to an average of
4.99% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1973: the 1968 dollar
lost 21.6% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1973 at the same ratio, 1.28: $1,000 becomes
$1,276, and $10,000 becomes $12,759.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1973
$1.00
$1.28
$5.00
$6.38
$10.00
$12.76
$20.00
$25.52
$50.00
$63.79
$100
$128
$500
$638
$1,000
$1,276
$5,000
$6,379
$10,000
$12,759
$100,000
$127,586
$1,000,000
$1,275,862
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1973
Between 1968 and 1973, food rose the most, up 36.5%, while transportation rose the least, up 20.1%, against 27.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1973, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.99%
$128
Food
6.43%
$137
Medical care
5.35%
$130
Housing
5.18%
$129
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.67%
$126
Energy
3.97%
$121
Apparel
3.77%
$120
Transportation
3.73%
$120
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1973
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 5.59% a year, and slowest in the 1970s (4.60% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1973 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1973
4.60%
14.4%
$128
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $111 by
1970, on its way to $128 in 1973; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 6.2% in 1973, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1973, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $128; the year's average CPI of 44.4 is the level
behind every 1973 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.2% in 1973, nearly double 1972’s 3.2%,
as Nixon’s wage and price controls were phased out through the year and
pressure the controls had been holding back broke loose. The bigger shock
arrived that October, when Arab oil-producing states embargoed exports to the
United States and other supporters of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Crude
oil, which had traded around $3 a barrel, approached $12 by early 1974, and
gas lines became a fixture outside filling stations nationwide. Earlier in
the year, the Paris Peace Accords, signed that January 27, ended direct
American combat in Vietnam and set a 60-day deadline for withdrawing
remaining U.S. troops, even as fighting between North and South Vietnam went
on. Financial markets read the year correctly as a turning point: the Dow
Jones Industrial Average peaked at 1,051.70 on January 11, a level it would
not reach again until 1980, before the oil shock and rising interest rates
dragged it into a two-year bear market. A median household earned $10,512 in
1973, a new home sold for a median $32,500, and gas averaged 38.5 cents a
gallon, still under half of what the embargo’s effects would bring the
following year. Consumer prices stood 348.5% above their
1913 level by year’s end, with the decade’s worst inflation
still ahead.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1973: $100 is worth $128 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1973/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1973. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1973/