$100 in 1968 is worth $356 in 1989,
because prices increased 256.3% over that period, an average of
6.24% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$356
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
256.3%
Average inflation rate
6.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$356
Price difference ($100 base)
$256
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1968 → 1989
$356
$100 in 1989 → 1968
$28.06
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1989
Between 1968 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 256.3%, which works out to an average of
6.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.28 buys in 1989: the 1968 dollar
lost 71.9% of its purchasing power over
these 21 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 1989 at the same ratio, 3.56: $1,000 becomes
$3,563, and $10,000 becomes $35,632.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1989
$1.00
$3.56
$5.00
$17.82
$10.00
$35.63
$20.00
$71.26
$50.00
$178
$100
$356
$500
$1,782
$1,000
$3,563
$5,000
$17,816
$10,000
$35,632
$100,000
$356,322
$1,000,000
$3,563,218
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1989
Between 1968 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 399.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 120.9%, against 256.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.24%
$356
Medical care
7.96%
$499
Energy
6.69%
$390
Housing
6.62%
$384
Core (all items less food & energy)
6.22%
$355
Food
6.21%
$354
Transportation
5.89%
$333
Apparel
3.85%
$221
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1980s (4.65% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$356
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $187 by
1978, on its way to $356 in 1989; 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 1.9% in 1986.
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $356; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1989: $100 is worth $356 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1989/