$100 in 1968 is worth $680 in 2014,
because prices increased 580.3% over that period, an average of
4.26% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$680
in 2014
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
580.3%
Average inflation rate
4.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$680
Price difference ($100 base)
$580
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2014
236.736
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2014
1.62%
$100 in 1968 → 2014
$680
$100 in 2014 → 1968
$14.70
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2014
Between 1968 and 2014, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 236.736.
Cumulatively, prices increased 580.3%, which works out to an average of
4.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2014: the 1968 dollar
lost 85.3% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 2014 at the same ratio, 6.80: $1,000 becomes
$6,803, and $10,000 becomes $68,028.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2014
$1.00
$6.80
$5.00
$34.01
$10.00
$68.03
$20.00
$136
$50.00
$340
$100
$680
$500
$3,401
$1,000
$6,803
$5,000
$34,014
$10,000
$68,028
$100,000
$680,276
$1,000,000
$6,802,759
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2014
Between 1968 and 2014, medical care rose the most, up 1355.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 137.5%, against 580.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2014, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.26%
$680
Medical care
5.99%
$1,456
Energy
5.15%
$1,007
Housing
4.41%
$729
Food
4.28%
$688
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.17%
$655
Transportation
4.08%
$630
Apparel
1.90%
$237
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2014
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2014 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
2010–2014
2.08%
8.6%
$680
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $376 by
1990, on its way to $680 in 2014; 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: 2014
In 2014, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $680; the year's average CPI of 236.736 is the level
behind every 2014 figure on this page.
2014 ended with the sharpest oil price drop in years. Consumer prices rose
1.6% for the year, close to 2013’s pace, but the annual figure hid a shift at
the pump: crude oil fell from above $100 a barrel in June to below $60 in
December, and gasoline finished the year near $2.25 a gallon after averaging
$3.37 across 2014. The drop reflected record U.S. shale output, softer
global demand, and OPEC’s decision in November to keep producing.
For households, cheaper fuel arrived just as the labor market strengthened.
Median household income was $53,657, essentially flat on the prior year, and
the median new home sold for about $288,500. The federal minimum wage stayed
at $7.25 for a fifth year, and a first-class stamp rose to 49 cents.
The Federal Reserve ended its bond purchases in October but left its policy
rate at zero. A stronger dollar helped hold down import prices. Because
energy weighs heavily in the CPI, the late-year slide carried into 2015, which
posted the smallest annual increase of the decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2014: $100 is worth $680 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2014/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2014. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2014/