$100 in 1968 is worth $529 in 2003,
because prices increased 428.7% over that period, an average of
4.87% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$529
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
428.7%
Average inflation rate
4.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$529
Price difference ($100 base)
$429
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1968 → 2003
$529
$100 in 2003 → 1968
$18.91
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2003
Between 1968 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 428.7%, which works out to an average of
4.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.19 buys in 2003: the 1968 dollar
lost 81.1% of its purchasing power over
these 35 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 2003 at the same ratio, 5.29: $1,000 becomes
$5,287, and $10,000 becomes $52,874.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2003
$1.00
$5.29
$5.00
$26.44
$10.00
$52.87
$20.00
$106
$50.00
$264
$100
$529
$500
$2,644
$1,000
$5,287
$5,000
$26,437
$10,000
$52,874
$100,000
$528,736
$1,000,000
$5,287,356
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2003
Between 1968 and 2003, medical care rose the most, up 893.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 125.1%, against 428.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.87%
$529
Medical care
6.78%
$994
Housing
5.14%
$578
Energy
5.07%
$564
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.89%
$532
Food
4.76%
$510
Transportation
4.45%
$459
Apparel
2.35%
$225
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2003
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.23% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2003 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
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$529
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $315 by
1986, on its way to $529 in 2003; 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: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $529; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2003: $100 is worth $529 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2003/