$100 in 1968 is worth $596 in 2007,
because prices increased 495.8% over that period, an average of
4.68% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$596
in 2007
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
495.8%
Average inflation rate
4.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$596
Price difference ($100 base)
$496
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2007
207.342
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2007
2.85%
$100 in 1968 → 2007
$596
$100 in 2007 → 1968
$16.78
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2007
Between 1968 and 2007, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 207.342.
Cumulatively, prices increased 495.8%, which works out to an average of
4.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.17 buys in 2007: the 1968 dollar
lost 83.2% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 2007 at the same ratio, 5.96: $1,000 becomes
$5,958, and $10,000 becomes $59,581.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2007
$1.00
$5.96
$5.00
$29.79
$10.00
$59.58
$20.00
$119
$50.00
$298
$100
$596
$500
$2,979
$1,000
$5,958
$5,000
$29,791
$10,000
$59,581
$100,000
$595,810
$1,000,000
$5,958,103
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2007
Between 1968 and 2007, medical care rose the most, up 1074.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 121.6%, against 495.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2007, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.68%
$596
Medical care
6.52%
$1,174
Energy
5.67%
$858
Housing
4.94%
$655
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.61%
$581
Food
4.59%
$575
Transportation
4.41%
$538
Apparel
2.06%
$222
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2007
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.69% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2007 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
2000–2007
2.69%
20.4%
$596
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $340 by
1988, on its way to $596 in 2007; 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: 2007
In 2007, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $596; the year's average CPI of 207.342 is the level
behind every 2007 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.8% in 2007, with gasoline averaging $2.80 a gallon, but the year is better
known for what began underneath prices. In August, French bank BNP Paribas froze funds tied to
U.S. subprime mortgages, and credit between banks tightened. The Federal Reserve responded with
a half-point cut on September 18, its first in four years, and took the policy rate from 5.25% to
4.25% by December. The economy peaked that month, by the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating, and the Great Recession followed. The median household earned about $50,200, and the
median new home cost $247,900. Congress ended the decade-long freeze on the federal minimum wage
in May, with the first of three steps to $5.85 in July. A first-class stamp cost 41 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2007: $100 is worth $596 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2007/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2007. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2007/