$100 in 1968 is worth $155 in 1975,
because prices increased 54.6% over that period, an average of
6.42% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$155
in 1975
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
54.6%
Average inflation rate
6.42% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$155
Price difference ($100 base)
$54.60
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1975
53.8
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
$100 in 1968 → 1975
$155
$100 in 1975 → 1968
$64.68
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1975
Between 1968 and 1975, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 53.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 54.6%, which works out to an average of
6.42% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1975: the 1968 dollar
lost 35.3% of its purchasing power over
these 7 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 1975 at the same ratio, 1.55: $1,000 becomes
$1,546, and $10,000 becomes $15,460.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1975
$1.00
$1.55
$5.00
$7.73
$10.00
$15.46
$20.00
$30.92
$50.00
$77.30
$100
$155
$500
$773
$1,000
$1,546
$5,000
$7,730
$10,000
$15,460
$100,000
$154,598
$1,000,000
$1,545,977
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1975
Between 1968 and 1975, energy rose the most, up 74.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 35.0%, against 54.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1975, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.42%
$155
Energy
8.23%
$174
Food
7.82%
$169
Medical care
6.84%
$159
Housing
6.80%
$158
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.81%
$148
Transportation
5.56%
$146
Apparel
4.38%
$135
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1975
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.76% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.59% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1975 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1975
6.76%
38.7%
$155
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $116 by
1971, on its way to $155 in 1975; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1975, prices rose 9.1% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $155; the year's average CPI of 53.8 is the level
behind every 1975 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 9.1% in 1975, easing slightly from 1974’s
11.0% but still running far above anything the country had experienced before
the decade began. The recession that started in November 1973, the deepest
since the Great Depression, bottomed out that March, yet unemployment kept
climbing through the year and touched 9%, a combination of high inflation and
high joblessness that had no precedent in the postwar data. Vietnam ended
that April 30, when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon and the last
Americans were evacuated by helicopter from the U.S. embassy roof. Fiscal
strain hit closer to home too: New York City, facing bankruptcy after years
of borrowing to paper over budget gaps, asked Washington for help that
October. President Ford’s initial refusal produced the Daily News headline
“Ford to City: Drop Dead,” though he ultimately signed a federal loan package
that December. Amid the gloom, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft
that April in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to sell a version of the BASIC
programming language for the Altair 8800, one of the first personal
computers sold to hobbyists. A median household earned $11,800 in 1975, a new
home sold for a median $39,300, and first-class postage held at 10 cents,
unchanged since 1974’s increase. Consumer prices stood 443.4%
above their 1913 level, with the decade barely past its
midpoint.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1975: $100 is worth $155 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1975/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1975. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1975/