$100 in 1968 is worth $627 in 2010,
because prices increased 526.6% over that period, an average of
4.47% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$627
in 2010
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
526.6%
Average inflation rate
4.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$627
Price difference ($100 base)
$527
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2010
218.056
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2010
1.64%
$100 in 1968 → 2010
$627
$100 in 2010 → 1968
$15.96
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2010
Between 1968 and 2010, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 218.056.
Cumulatively, prices increased 526.6%, which works out to an average of
4.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.16 buys in 2010: the 1968 dollar
lost 84.0% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 2010 at the same ratio, 6.27: $1,000 becomes
$6,266, and $10,000 becomes $62,660.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2010
$1.00
$6.27
$5.00
$31.33
$10.00
$62.66
$20.00
$125
$50.00
$313
$100
$627
$500
$3,133
$1,000
$6,266
$5,000
$31,330
$10,000
$62,660
$100,000
$626,598
$1,000,000
$6,265,977
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2010
Between 1968 and 2010, medical care rose the most, up 1199.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 122.5%, against 526.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2010, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.47%
$627
Medical care
6.30%
$1,299
Energy
5.30%
$874
Housing
4.65%
$676
Food
4.45%
$622
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.40%
$610
Transportation
4.20%
$564
Apparel
1.92%
$223
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2010
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2010 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$627
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $340 by
1988, on its way to $627 in 2010; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2010
In 2010, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $627; the year's average CPI of 218.056 is the level
behind every 2010 figure on this page.
2010 was a year of recovery without much price pressure. The CPI rose 1.6%, a
return to growth after 2009’s deflation, with gasoline averaging $2.78 a
gallon as energy prices climbed back from their recession lows. Housing costs
barely moved: millions of foreclosed and vacant homes kept rents soft, and the
median new home sold for about $221,800. The federal minimum wage stayed at
$7.25, the level set in July 2009, and a first-class stamp cost 44 cents.
The Federal Reserve was more worried about too little inflation than too
much. Its policy rate sat at 0–0.25%, and in November it announced a further
$600 billion of Treasury purchases to hold down long-term borrowing costs.
Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act in July to tighten financial regulation,
while a 110 billion euro rescue of Greece in May showed that the crisis had
moved from American mortgages to European government debt. For anyone
comparing dollars across the decade, 2010 is a useful baseline: prices were
still close to their 2008 levels, and the years ahead brought a slow, steady
climb.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2010: $100 is worth $627 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2010/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2010. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2010/