$100 in 1968 is worth $744 in 2020,
because prices increased 643.7% over that period, an average of
3.93% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$744
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
643.7%
Average inflation rate
3.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$744
Price difference ($100 base)
$644
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1968 → 2020
$744
$100 in 2020 → 1968
$13.45
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2020
Between 1968 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 643.7%, which works out to an average of
3.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2020: the 1968 dollar
lost 86.6% of its purchasing power over
these 52 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 2020 at the same ratio, 7.44: $1,000 becomes
$7,437, and $10,000 becomes $74,371.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2020
$1.00
$7.44
$5.00
$37.19
$10.00
$74.37
$20.00
$149
$50.00
$372
$100
$744
$500
$3,719
$1,000
$7,437
$5,000
$37,185
$10,000
$74,371
$100,000
$743,710
$1,000,000
$7,437,098
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2020
Between 1968 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 1635.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 119.9%, against 643.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.93%
$744
Medical care
5.64%
$1,735
Housing
4.20%
$849
Energy
4.11%
$814
Food
3.97%
$757
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.92%
$737
Transportation
3.46%
$587
Apparel
1.53%
$220
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$744
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $426 by
1994, on its way to $744 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $744; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2020: $100 is worth $744 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2020/