$100 in 1968 is worth $187 in 1978,
because prices increased 87.4% over that period, an average of
6.48% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$187
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
87.4%
Average inflation rate
6.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$187
Price difference ($100 base)
$87.36
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1968 → 1978
$187
$100 in 1978 → 1968
$53.37
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1978
Between 1968 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 87.4%, which works out to an average of
6.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1978: the 1968 dollar
lost 46.6% of its purchasing power over
these 10 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 1978 at the same ratio, 1.87: $1,000 becomes
$1,874, and $10,000 becomes $18,736.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1978
$1.00
$1.87
$5.00
$9.37
$10.00
$18.74
$20.00
$37.47
$50.00
$93.68
$100
$187
$500
$937
$1,000
$1,874
$5,000
$9,368
$10,000
$18,736
$100,000
$187,356
$1,000,000
$1,873,563
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1978
Between 1968 and 1978, energy rose the most, up 116.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 51.6%, against 87.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.48%
$187
Energy
8.05%
$217
Medical care
7.53%
$207
Food
7.39%
$204
Housing
6.91%
$195
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.08%
$180
Transportation
6.05%
$180
Apparel
4.25%
$152
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.59% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1978 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$187
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $128 by
1973, on its way to $187 in 1978; 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 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $187; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1978: $100 is worth $187 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1978/