$100 in 1968 is worth $209 in 1979,
because prices increased 108.6% over that period, an average of
6.91% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$209
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
108.6%
Average inflation rate
6.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$209
Price difference ($100 base)
$109
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1968 → 1979
$209
$100 in 1979 → 1968
$47.93
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1979
Between 1968 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 108.6%, which works out to an average of
6.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1979: the 1968 dollar
lost 52.1% of its purchasing power over
these 11 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 1979 at the same ratio, 2.09: $1,000 becomes
$2,086, and $10,000 becomes $20,862.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1979
$1.00
$2.09
$5.00
$10.43
$10.00
$20.86
$20.00
$41.72
$50.00
$104
$100
$209
$500
$1,043
$1,000
$2,086
$5,000
$10,431
$10,000
$20,862
$100,000
$208,621
$1,000,000
$2,086,207
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1979
Between 1968 and 1979, energy rose the most, up 171.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 58.1%, against 108.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.91%
$209
Energy
9.50%
$271
Food
7.71%
$226
Medical care
7.68%
$226
Housing
7.39%
$219
Transportation
6.77%
$206
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.41%
$198
Apparel
4.25%
$158
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.59% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1979 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$209
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $128 by
1973, on its way to $209 in 1979; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.3% in 1979, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $209; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1979: $100 is worth $209 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1979/