$100 in 1968 is worth $660 in 2012,
because prices increased 559.8% over that period, an average of
4.38% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$660
in 2012
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
559.8%
Average inflation rate
4.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$660
Price difference ($100 base)
$560
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2012
229.594
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2012
2.07%
$100 in 1968 → 2012
$660
$100 in 2012 → 1968
$15.16
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2012
Between 1968 and 2012, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 229.594.
Cumulatively, prices increased 559.8%, which works out to an average of
4.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2012: the 1968 dollar
lost 84.8% of its purchasing power over
these 44 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 2012 at the same ratio, 6.60: $1,000 becomes
$6,598, and $10,000 becomes $65,975.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2012
$1.00
$6.60
$5.00
$32.99
$10.00
$65.98
$20.00
$132
$50.00
$330
$100
$660
$500
$3,299
$1,000
$6,598
$5,000
$32,988
$10,000
$65,975
$100,000
$659,753
$1,000,000
$6,597,529
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2012
Between 1968 and 2012, medical care rose the most, up 1287.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 135.1%, against 559.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2012, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.38%
$660
Medical care
6.16%
$1,388
Energy
5.41%
$1,017
Housing
4.51%
$696
Food
4.39%
$662
Transportation
4.29%
$634
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.28%
$633
Apparel
1.96%
$235
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2012
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 1968–2012 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
2010–2012
2.61%
5.3%
$660
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $376 by
1990, on its way to $660 in 2012; 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: 2012
In 2012, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $660; the year's average CPI of 229.594 is the level
behind every 2012 figure on this page.
2012 put a number on what the Federal Reserve was aiming for. In January the
Fed announced a 2% inflation target, and consumer prices rose 2.1% for the
year, almost exactly on it. Gasoline averaged $3.62 a gallon, another annual
high, but the pace of increase cooled from 2011’s 3.2% as food and core prices
grew more slowly.
The bigger story was housing and jobs. Home prices began to recover, and the
median new home sold for about $245,200, up from $227,200 the year before.
Median household income was $51,017. The federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 45 cents.
In September the Fed started a third round of asset purchases, this one with
no fixed end date, aimed at lowering unemployment. Overseas, the European
Central Bank’s July pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro calmed
bond markets. A summer drought across the Midwest drove corn and soybean
prices to records, a shock that reached grocery shelves only partly, because
most of what shoppers pay for food covers processing and transport rather than
raw crops.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2012: $100 is worth $660 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2012/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2012. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2012/