$100 in 1968 is worth $561 in 2005,
because prices increased 461.2% over that period, an average of
4.77% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$561
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
461.2%
Average inflation rate
4.77% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$561
Price difference ($100 base)
$461
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1968 → 2005
$561
$100 in 2005 → 1968
$17.82
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2005
Between 1968 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 461.2%, which works out to an average of
4.77% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.18 buys in 2005: the 1968 dollar
lost 82.2% of its purchasing power over
these 37 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 2005 at the same ratio, 5.61: $1,000 becomes
$5,612, and $10,000 becomes $56,121.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2005
$1.00
$5.61
$5.00
$28.06
$10.00
$56.12
$20.00
$112
$50.00
$281
$100
$561
$500
$2,806
$1,000
$5,612
$5,000
$28,060
$10,000
$56,121
$100,000
$561,207
$1,000,000
$5,612,069
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2005
Between 1968 and 2005, medical care rose the most, up 980.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 122.5%, against 461.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.77%
$561
Medical care
6.65%
$1,081
Energy
5.53%
$732
Housing
5.02%
$612
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.73%
$553
Food
4.66%
$540
Transportation
4.49%
$507
Apparel
2.19%
$223
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2005
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.55% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2005 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
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$561
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $315 by
1986, on its way to $561 in 2005; 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: 2005
In 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $561; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2005: $100 is worth $561 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2005/