$100 in 1968 is worth $415 in 1993,
because prices increased 315.2% over that period, an average of
5.86% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$415
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
315.2%
Average inflation rate
5.86% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$415
Price difference ($100 base)
$315
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1968 → 1993
$415
$100 in 1993 → 1968
$24.08
What happened to prices between 1968 and 1993
Between 1968 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 315.2%, which works out to an average of
5.86% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1993: the 1968 dollar
lost 75.9% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1993 at the same ratio, 4.15: $1,000 becomes
$4,152, and $10,000 becomes $41,523.
Amount in 1968
Value in 1993
$1.00
$4.15
$5.00
$20.76
$10.00
$41.52
$20.00
$83.05
$50.00
$208
$100
$415
$500
$2,076
$1,000
$4,152
$5,000
$20,761
$10,000
$41,523
$100,000
$415,230
$1,000,000
$4,152,299
Inflation by spending category, 1968–1993
Between 1968 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 573.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 149.0%, against 315.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.86%
$415
Medical care
7.93%
$674
Housing
6.12%
$441
Energy
6.01%
$431
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.90%
$419
Food
5.69%
$399
Transportation
5.49%
$380
Apparel
3.72%
$249
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 1993
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1990s (3.40% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$376
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$415
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $237 by
1980, on its way to $415 in 1993; 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 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $415; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 1993: $100 is worth $415 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-1993/