$100 in 1968 is worth $646 in 2011,
because prices increased 546.4% over that period, an average of
4.44% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$646
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
546.4%
Average inflation rate
4.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$646
Price difference ($100 base)
$546
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1968 → 2011
$646
$100 in 2011 → 1968
$15.47
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2011
Between 1968 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 546.4%, which works out to an average of
4.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2011: the 1968 dollar
lost 84.5% of its purchasing power over
these 43 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 2011 at the same ratio, 6.46: $1,000 becomes
$6,464, and $10,000 becomes $64,638.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2011
$1.00
$6.46
$5.00
$32.32
$10.00
$64.64
$20.00
$129
$50.00
$323
$100
$646
$500
$3,232
$1,000
$6,464
$5,000
$32,319
$10,000
$64,638
$100,000
$646,376
$1,000,000
$6,463,764
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2011
Between 1968 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 1238.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 127.4%, against 546.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.44%
$646
Medical care
6.22%
$1,339
Energy
5.52%
$1,008
Housing
4.58%
$685
Food
4.43%
$645
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.33%
$620
Transportation
4.33%
$619
Apparel
1.93%
$227
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2011
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 1968–2011 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
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$646
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $376 by
1990, on its way to $646 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $646; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2011: $100 is worth $646 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2011/