$100 in 1968 is worth $277 in 1982,
because prices increased 177.3% over that period, an average of
7.56% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$277
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
177.3%
Average inflation rate
7.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$277
Price difference ($100 base)
$177
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1968 → 1982
$277
$100 in 1982 → 1968
$36.06
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1982
Between 1968 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 177.3%, which works out to an average of
7.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.36 buys in 1982: the 1968 dollar
lost 63.9% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1982 at the same ratio, 2.77: $1,000 becomes
$2,773, and $10,000 becomes $27,730.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1982
$1.00
$2.77
$5.00
$13.86
$10.00
$27.73
$20.00
$55.46
$50.00
$139
$100
$277
$500
$1,386
$1,000
$2,773
$5,000
$13,865
$10,000
$27,730
$100,000
$277,299
$1,000,000
$2,772,989
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1982
Between 1968 and 1982, energy rose the most, up 309.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 82.1%, against 177.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.56%
$277
Energy
10.60%
$410
Medical care
8.40%
$309
Housing
8.24%
$303
Transportation
7.71%
$283
Food
7.52%
$276
Core (all items less food & energy)
7.18%
$264
Apparel
4.38%
$182
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.59% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$237
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$277
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $155 by
1975, on its way to $277 in 1982; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $277; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1982: $100 is worth $277 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1982/