$100 in 1968 is worth $164 in 1976,
because prices increased 63.5% over that period, an average of
6.34% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$164
in 1976
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
63.5%
Average inflation rate
6.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$164
Price difference ($100 base)
$63.51
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1976
56.9
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1976
5.76%
$100 in 1968 → 1976
$164
$100 in 1976 → 1968
$61.16
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1976
Between 1968 and 1976, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 56.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 63.5%, which works out to an average of
6.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.61 buys in 1976: the 1968 dollar
lost 38.8% of its purchasing power over
these 8 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 1976 at the same ratio, 1.64: $1,000 becomes
$1,635, and $10,000 becomes $16,351.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1976
$1.00
$1.64
$5.00
$8.18
$10.00
$16.35
$20.00
$32.70
$50.00
$81.75
$100
$164
$500
$818
$1,000
$1,635
$5,000
$8,175
$10,000
$16,351
$100,000
$163,506
$1,000,000
$1,635,057
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1976
Between 1968 and 1976, energy rose the most, up 86.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 40.0%, against 63.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1976, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.34%
$164
Energy
8.09%
$186
Food
7.21%
$175
Medical care
7.16%
$174
Housing
6.71%
$168
Transportation
6.10%
$161
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.90%
$158
Apparel
4.30%
$140
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1976
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.59% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.59% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1976 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1976
6.59%
46.6%
$164
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $120 by
1972, on its way to $164 in 1976; 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 1976, prices rose 5.8% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $164; the year's average CPI of 56.9 is the level
behind every 1976 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.8% in 1976, the calmest pace since 1972,
as the economy pulled out of the 1973-75 recession and price growth settled
to roughly half its 1974 peak. The recovery gave Americans
room to celebrate: tall ships filled New York Harbor and fireworks lit cities
nationwide on July 4 for the country’s bicentennial, a rare moment of shared
celebration after Vietnam and Watergate. Politically, Jimmy Carter, a former
Georgia governor running as a Washington outsider, defeated incumbent Gerald
Ford that November, campaigning on restoring trust in government and bringing
down inflation and unemployment together. In a California garage, Steve
Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer that April to
sell the Apple I, a bare circuit board aimed at electronics hobbyists, a
business that looked far from consequential at the time. First-class
postage, which had risen to 13 cents that past December 31, held there
through the year, the longest stretch without a rate change since the Postal
Service’s creation. A median household earned $12,686 in 1976, a new home
sold for a median $44,200, and gas averaged 59 cents a gallon. Consumer
prices stood 474.7% above their 1913 level, a calm interlude
before inflation turned back up.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1976: $100 is worth $164 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1976/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1976. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1976/