$100 in 1968 is worth $779 in 2021,
because prices increased 678.6% over that period, an average of
3.95% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$779
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
678.6%
Average inflation rate
3.95% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$779
Price difference ($100 base)
$679
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1968 → 2021
$779
$100 in 2021 → 1968
$12.84
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2021
Between 1968 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 678.6%, which works out to an average of
3.95% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2021: the 1968 dollar
lost 87.2% of its purchasing power over
these 53 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 2021 at the same ratio, 7.79: $1,000 becomes
$7,786, and $10,000 becomes $77,865.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2021
$1.00
$7.79
$5.00
$38.93
$10.00
$77.86
$20.00
$156
$50.00
$389
$100
$779
$500
$3,893
$1,000
$7,786
$5,000
$38,932
$10,000
$77,865
$100,000
$778,649
$1,000,000
$7,786,494
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2021
Between 1968 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 1656.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 125.3%, against 678.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.95%
$779
Medical care
5.56%
$1,757
Energy
4.41%
$985
Housing
4.18%
$877
Food
3.97%
$787
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.91%
$764
Transportation
3.66%
$672
Apparel
1.54%
$225
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2021
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 1968–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$779
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $426 by
1994, on its way to $779 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $779; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2021: $100 is worth $779 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2021/