$100 in 1968 is worth $517 in 2002,
because prices increased 417.0% over that period, an average of
4.95% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$517
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
417.0%
Average inflation rate
4.95% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$517
Price difference ($100 base)
$417
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1968 → 2002
$517
$100 in 2002 → 1968
$19.34
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2002
Between 1968 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 417.0%, which works out to an average of
4.95% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.19 buys in 2002: the 1968 dollar
lost 80.7% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 2002 at the same ratio, 5.17: $1,000 becomes
$5,170, and $10,000 becomes $51,695.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2002
$1.00
$5.17
$5.00
$25.85
$10.00
$51.70
$20.00
$103
$50.00
$258
$100
$517
$500
$2,585
$1,000
$5,170
$5,000
$25,848
$10,000
$51,695
$100,000
$516,954
$1,000,000
$5,169,540
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2002
Between 1968 and 2002, medical care rose the most, up 855.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 130.9%, against 417.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.95%
$517
Medical care
6.86%
$955
Housing
5.22%
$563
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.00%
$525
Energy
4.87%
$503
Food
4.84%
$499
Transportation
4.49%
$446
Apparel
2.49%
$231
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2002
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.21% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2002 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$495
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$517
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $299 by
1984, on its way to $517 in 2002; 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 1.6% in 1998.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $517; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2002: $100 is worth $517 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2002/