$100 in 1968 is worth $299 in 1984,
because prices increased 198.6% over that period, an average of
7.08% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$299
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
198.6%
Average inflation rate
7.08% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$299
Price difference ($100 base)
$199
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1968 → 1984
$299
$100 in 1984 → 1968
$33.49
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1984
Between 1968 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 198.6%, which works out to an average of
7.08% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.33 buys in 1984: the 1968 dollar
lost 66.5% of its purchasing power over
these 16 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 1984 at the same ratio, 2.99: $1,000 becomes
$2,986, and $10,000 becomes $29,856.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1984
$1.00
$2.99
$5.00
$14.93
$10.00
$29.86
$20.00
$59.71
$50.00
$149
$100
$299
$500
$1,493
$1,000
$2,986
$5,000
$14,928
$10,000
$29,856
$100,000
$298,563
$1,000,000
$2,985,632
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1984
Between 1968 and 1984, energy rose the most, up 316.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 90.1%, against 198.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.08%
$299
Energy
9.33%
$417
Medical care
8.28%
$357
Housing
7.62%
$324
Transportation
7.16%
$302
Food
6.93%
$292
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.84%
$288
Apparel
4.10%
$190
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (5.59% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$299
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $164 by
1976, on its way to $299 in 1984; 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 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $299; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1984: $100 is worth $299 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1984/