$100 in 1968 is worth $704 in 2017,
because prices increased 604.4% over that period, an average of
4.06% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$704
in 2017
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
604.4%
Average inflation rate
4.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$704
Price difference ($100 base)
$604
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2017
245.12
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2017
2.13%
$100 in 1968 → 2017
$704
$100 in 2017 → 1968
$14.20
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2017
Between 1968 and 2017, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 245.12.
Cumulatively, prices increased 604.4%, which works out to an average of
4.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2017: the 1968 dollar
lost 85.8% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 2017 at the same ratio, 7.04: $1,000 becomes
$7,044, and $10,000 becomes $70,437.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2017
$1.00
$7.04
$5.00
$35.22
$10.00
$70.44
$20.00
$141
$50.00
$352
$100
$704
$500
$3,522
$1,000
$7,044
$5,000
$35,218
$10,000
$70,437
$100,000
$704,368
$1,000,000
$7,043,678
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2017
Between 1968 and 2017, medical care rose the most, up 1489.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 133.9%, against 604.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2017, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.06%
$704
Medical care
5.81%
$1,590
Energy
4.45%
$845
Housing
4.30%
$785
Food
4.08%
$708
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.03%
$695
Transportation
3.68%
$588
Apparel
1.75%
$234
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2017
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.69% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2017 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
2010–2017
1.69%
12.4%
$704
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $403 by
1992, on its way to $704 in 2017; 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: 2017
In 2017, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $704; the year's average CPI of 245.12 is the level
behind every 2017 figure on this page.
2017 pushed consumer prices back above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The
CPI rose 2.1%, the first reading over 2% in five years, helped by a rebound
in energy after OPEC’s output cuts and by a storm-related spike at the pump:
Hurricane Harvey shut a large part of Gulf Coast refining in late August.
Gasoline averaged $2.42 a gallon, up from $2.14 in 2016.
Household incomes kept rising. The median household income reached $61,372,
and the median new home sold for about $322,100. The federal minimum wage
stayed at $7.25, its eighth year at that level, and a first-class stamp rose
to 49 cents.
The Fed raised rates three times, to 1.25–1.50%, and in October began
letting its bond holdings shrink. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
in December, lowering the corporate rate to 21%. Even with unemployment near
4%, core inflation stayed under 2%, a puzzle that shaped Fed debates for the
next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2017: $100 is worth $704 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2017/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2017. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2017/